The hole story

The ol' back wound continues to pervade my blog, and to the squeamish I apologise, but I must report there is both physical and mental progress at last. I hadn't realised, despite lashings of prozac, how very down in the dumps I was feeling about the hole in my back; I was coming undone in more ways than one. A yellowy liquid called serous fluid was leaking from the hole and a jarring infection was skulking around it; Mr A even tried sewing it up again but to no avail. I thought I was going to be wearing a bandage on my back forever. Turns out my wound is in a state of "chronic healing".


A few weeks ago, Ms N, the wonderful tissue viability expert, managed to move things on with her own special brand of voodoo. On closer inspection it was an absorbent dressing called Aquacel. The hole is getting smaller and closing up, there is an entire layer of protective granulation tissue (more on that another time) and now I can start to look forward instead of backward. If only the thing had managed to engage in "primary healing" - i.e., close up nice and neatly after the operation four months ago and leave a less ugly scar - but of course, I managed to be the one in ten who gets this particular brand of chronic complication after LD surgery. 


Still, one positive result of the constant need for aftercare has allowed me to make friends with different nurses in various healthcare settings. I'm rather fond of the district nurses at Falmouth hospital's saturday morning dressing clinic, the practice nurses at Trescobeas surgery, Ms N the specialist tissue nurse at Treliske and my breast care nurses at the Mermaid. When it was my husband's birthday, one of my new nurse friends who has a sideline in baked goods made me some cheese straws, a lemon drizzle cake, and a batch of oversized chocolate chip cookies. Unfortunately, I don't have any photographs of them because they were eaten too quickly. 

Yum.