When It Rains, It Pours

Saturday I was up at the hospital visiting the most beautiful babies in the world…yes – mine. The nurses in the post-op ward wanted to know how I was feeling since the C-Section, and I mentioned that I was more sore than right after surgery…which they of course thought made no sense. They took a quick look at my incision and freaked the F out. It was swollen – which I thought was normal. It was red – which I thought was normal. And – they thought it was infected. Bummer. So they paged my doctor’s office and his partner called back. He said that I should either go to the emergency room or wait until Monday and see my doctor. Hmmm – lazy doctor? I thought so. Anyway, I didn’t think it was an emergency so we went home.

At 11:00, after pumping, I got up and went into the bathroom and the incision sort of exploded and began leaking red fluid all over the freaking place. It was like my water had again broken! I was a little shocked, scared, and freaked out. So, we went to the emergency room where they again paged my doctor’s office. The same lazy partner called back and said to start me on antibiotics and sent me home with instructions to return if I got a fever or the drainage turned yellow or green and thick.

Sunday morning brought with it fever and yellow nasty drainage out of this little hole in my stomach. So gross. So, so gross. We again returned to the emergency room, where the infamous lazy doctor – hereby named Dr. Death, finally decided to make his grand entrance. He stuffed a cotton swab in the incision and instructed me to do the same every four hours. He wanted me to: take a 12 inch long cotton swab covered in hydrogen peroxide and stick it in my incision every four hours. So we went home and followed directions. OHMYGOD the pain.

Monday I went in for a follow up with Dr. Death at 2:15pm. One look at the incision and he announced that I needed surgery. NOW. I was sent to the hospital, checked in, and at 5:30 was in surgery to clean out the abscessed mess. I woke up to an open wound, cut hip to hip, stuffed full of gauze. That is correct – they DID NOT SEW IT SHUT. I was totally drugged up and still hurting. I went to take a shower Tuesday morning (so much pain) and when I looked in the mirror I almost passed out from the grossness of the open, gaping wound.

Yesterday they put a Freedom V.A.C wound pump that covers the mess and applies negative pressure to suck out all the grossness. It then puts all the drainage in a little pump thing that I carry around with me, like a walkman. Odd looking thing…but it beats them shoving gauze inside my wound every four hours. And it doesn’t hurt as much as the open incision. And the best part – they let me go home. So, I am now home and quite happy to be here.