Time for another update. (Probably overtime for all of you that have been wondering.)
Well, I am still here at the hospital. :( I ended up having a weird experience Sunday afternoon. Some of the details are kind of gross so if you don't want to read on, feel free to stop reading. (I have put stars farther down the post if you want to pick-up the reading after the gross part.)
I got up to use the restroom around 3:00 in the afternoon and nothing out of the ordinary happened. After I use the bathroom I like to take a walk since I am up already at that point (which is kind of a chore in itself). So I started walking down the hallway and I started feeling something wet between my thighs and then I started feeling some liquid dripping down my legs. My first thought was that maybe I hadn't quite wiped myself good enough after using the bathroom. I quickly turned around to walk quickly back to my room and glanced down at my legs and noticed that the liquid was red. (And I am pushing an I.V. pole at the time.) As I made it to the room I saw an aide in the hallway and asked him to get my nurse because I was bleeding somewhere. I went into the room and stood there by the bed as blood is just streaming down my legs and all over my socks and leg compressors. My nurse took a minute to get there so I went into the bathroom and stood there dripping until she came. She then had me pull down the disposable underwear I have been wearing here and sat on the toilet and blood just shoots out straight from my abdomen - about midway down my incision. It was pretty disgusting looking - like something out of a horror movie! She quickly grabbed a towel and had me hold it on my abdomen with some pressure and she and the aide cleaned up the blood off of the floor. Then they had me go and lay down on the bed - which I was hesitant to do because I didn't want to get all the blood on me onto the bed. They didn't feel comfortable having me stay on the toilet though in case I passed out.
My doctor's group was paged and one of them came and took a look at it. She seems to think that it is just a normal fluid pocket in the body that has mixed with some blood and found an opening to come out of. They decided to just bandage it all up with some gauze and tape and see what happened after that. They nurse and aide then cleaned me up and put new everything onto the bed so I could lay back down on it. It didn't take long to soak through though bandages though and I think we had to change the sheets at least once more that day.
** I am finished with the gross details!
They did finally switch me to a clear liquids diet on Monday which is a good step forward. Unfortunately I have been having a lot of heartburn and everything on the menu is acidic. I ordered a few things from the menu but couldn't drink more than a few sips of them.
Yesterday as they were taking the tape off of the dressing covering my incision, I looked down and noticed some pink looking skin. I reached down and touched it and almost cried because of the pain. I have very sensitive skin and so having to put this tape on and remove it multiple times a day has given me a couple of sore spots that hurt really bad. So we covered it up again and this time only used tape in the non-sore area but even after that and talking to one of the doctors, we decided to try just laying the bandages onto the wound and me just holding it in place with a towel and pillow. It worked most of the time - I think I did leak out onto the bed again but they had covered it in waterproof pads so it was as bad to clean as the last time.
Last night another nurse suggested a different way of holding it place - using the disposable underwear and that is working wonderfully and allowing me to get up and walk around again.
Today I was upgraded to an all liquids diet - which is a little better. I have not had a bowel movement yet which has the doctors concerned and I am still on I.V antibiotics for the bacteria that was found in my blood culture.
Today my abdomen is really swollen from all of the liquids that they are having pumped into me and I am still draining from that one spot on my incision line. It is still draining pretty good which is quite annoying but we are constantly finding better ways to cover it to contain the fluid. They let me take a shower today which felt good - my last one was on Saturday. DH happened to show up while I was in the shower so he was kind enough to help me get the new dressing mess on and situated.
