It hasn't been real fun around here

Since a few of you have posted gentle nudges, I thought I'd better post an update - mostly because I could use some prayer. For those of you who are squeamish, I've gone into a bit of detail below and you can skip to the last paragraph. You only need to know that I've had surgery and have now developed a rather discouraging complication.

On July 15, I went into the hospital for what should have been an easy little laparoscopic hysterectomy. Two hours in surgery, a night in the hospital and back to work in a month. Ha! The trouble is, I had a couple of complications which made that nice little procedure impossible and had to have a traditional abdominal incision to complete the operation. Ultrasounds are great, but they don't always show everything well. So, two hours turned into 5 1/2. But the good news is, I seem to have tolerated the extra stress well. Thanks to better living through chemistry and something known as a PCA pump (Patient controlled analgesia) which let me deliver a dose of one of our better drugs when I needed it for pain, but not more often than every fifteen minutes, I had remarkably little pain those first couple of days. It took me a while to get all that anesthesia out of my system and didn't really feel fully awake for almost 24 hours, but by the second morning after surgery I was off the PCA pump and taking oral pain meds. By the time I went home on the Saturday, I only needed motrin.

So far so good. I went for a couple of very short walks the first week home and after two weeks, I was allowed to drive so I went to lunch with a couple of girlfriends. Unfortunately, over the next few days I developed two complications. One was very unusual given my situation, an intestinal bug that usually only strikes those on heavy-duty IV antibiotics for a week or two. I, being the unique woman I am, managed to come down with it after only one IV antibiotic dose during surgery. Thankfully, the condition is easily treated with another antibiotic. Go figure that one!

The second complication is just one of those things that happens when you open up someones abdomen. I developed what is called a "seroma", which is a pocket of fluid collecting above the incision. It's more tedious and annoying and a bit painful than it is a serious or critical condition. Unfortunately, this means my surgeon had to re-open part of my incision to drain the fluid. Now, the really unfortunate thing about that is they don't re-close the incision with stitches. It is packed with saline-moistened gauze with a dressing over that. And to make matters even more tedious, discouraging and yuck-making, this has to be changed twice a day. The process is more nerve-wracking than it is painful and will take around a month for the wound to heal.

So, that's where I've been. Please, if you would, pray for me because I am really discouraged right now. I was so excited about how well I had tolerated the surgery and recovery and now, well, I think I'd rather have the surgery all over again rather than go through this healing process. Please also pray for my mother, as she has to do the evening dressing change. She was a champ tonight, but I think it's rather hard on her.

Thanks,

Kamilla