On September 16 I had a second surgery. The surgery itself went really well.

Within a couple of weeks, the new wound was not healing. In fact it was splitting and getting worse.

My current surgeon, had us start packing it again and told us to go back to old routines. After three weeks we got a second opinion.

The new surgeon, my mother calls him the cute surgeon, didn’t really say that what went wrong was the previous surgeon’s fault. He did say that he wouldn’t have done either surgery the way the old surgeon had.

Up to this point we were packing my wound with what I called string gauze. It was about a 1/4″ wide and was packed into the tunneling that my wound was creating. My new surgeon packed my wound with 4″ rolled gauze. It was a huge size difference and a huge pain difference. We were supposed to pack the wound the same way every night. Husband couldn’t. I think he was worried about causing me pain and shoving so much gauze into the wound. It was just too complicated. The next day I started going to the hospital for daily dressing changes.

The good news is that the packing was just a temporary stop-gap until we could get a Wound V.A.C. I could tell you what V.A.C stood for but  I’m too lazy to go read the box. Basically it is a machine that continually vacuums the wound. It removes all the gunk that could prevent healing and pulls the skin together.

Since I have the box, many of you have figured out that I now have said V.A.C. I’m officially a cyborg. Part human, part machine.

I’m continually attached to a machine about the size of an old answering machine. There is a yard or more of tubing and I have to carry both V.A.C and tubing around with me at all times. There is a fancy little pouch for it which I can carry on one shoulder or cross-body for ease of use. It’s got a fancy touch screen and I can check the amount of suction and charge at any time. Luckily, it is a rechargeable battery so there are only a few hours at night that I have to remain plugged in.

This is a mobile V.A.C. I could go places with this machine but I probably won’t. No one besides myself and family really needs to see goop running through this tubing. And while I could come up with a lot of ways to camouflage the tubes and machine, there would always be a chance that someone could see something they didn’t want to and I just can’t do that to other people.

I can also shower with this machine. You clamp some tubes, turn it off and disconnect from the machine. However, I have to be super careful not to get water into the drape (sticky stuff that keeps everything in place) and especially not the foam which is the integral part of how the machine works. If I do, I could create a worse infection than I’ve already had. Those were miserable and painful, I want to avoid another infection at all costs. I will most likely end up washing my hair in the sink and resorting to sponge baths.

I will likely have this machine attached to my tushy for another 4-6 weeks. And this is the fastest healing option available to me.

Every other day (except weekends) a nurse will come to my house and replace the tubes, foam & drape.

For now, I can sit on my tush. This is a new development. I’ve become really good at just sitting on one cheek or thigh. I’ve been leaning sideways on the couch to work for the past two weeks. I’m hoping tomorrow I can work in the office and sit in my office chair.

The sitting upright might only last until they do a new change and add an additional kind of foam with enters the wound deeper. It’s been my experience that the more inside packing there is, the more pain I’ll be in and the less likely I’ll be able to sit normally.

I look at this machine with dread and optimism. One the one side, I’m basically a home bound stinky person for at least the next month. (I exaggerate a bit.) On the other side, I’m healed in half the time and this whole ordeal is over.

I have moments where I cry and moments where I laugh.

I keep moving forward.

It’s been many weeks since I last posted. While I’ve been gone I’ve been working on getting healthy.

I’ve been having my meds monitored and working on healing the giant wound on my tush.

The med monitoring went great. I have a bill of health to return to work on 9/3.

My tushy hasn’t been so lucky. The infection healed quickly and I was off antibiotics in a week. I was told to keep doing what I was doing to treat the wound (gauze, tape etc.) for a couple of  weeks. There was no improvement.

Two weeks ago, the doctor said the wound would need to be packed. My poor husband had to go into the doctor’s office and learn to pack the wound. This was a level of intimacy that I was hoping to not reach the first two years of marriage. We created a routine and every night he packed the wound. I’m so grateful and really proud.

I went back for another follow-up yesterday. Justin was worried because once again there was no improvement and we should have been seeing miracle healing by this point. Turns out that he had reason to be worried. The infection caused the wound to not heal properly (actually not at all) and I would need another surgery. This time instead of excision of the cyst, it’s a debridement of the wound. My next surgery will be on 9/16.

This will be the third surgery I’ve had since March.

I had vacation scheduled to start on 9/16 but I wasn’t going to use it due to the fact that I’ve been on medical leave this whole time. Now with doctor’s orders I need to take a full week off before returning to work. There goes the vacation.

If this surgery doesn’t go well and the wound still doesn’t heal, I’ll be referred to a wound clinic where they have fancy & magical ways of healing wounds (this is my personal interpretation).  I really can’t imagine what it would mean for the surgery to not work, so I’m ignoring this piece of information as much as possible.

In the meantime, Justin and I will continue our routine to prevent the wound from getting worse and thus making the surgery that much worse.

I’m handling the news of another surgery fairly well. Crying, laughing, crying, laughing. You get the picture.

I hope my next post is a happier post.

Keep being plucky.