When last I was here hubby and I were anticipating his upcoming colon surgery for the removal of damage done by an abscess caused by Diverticulitis. Never in a million years did I think I would have a need to know how to spell diverticulitis!
The surgery went well and for the first day or two after coming home he was recovering just fine. He had two small incisions with a staple or two and one larger one where the docs hand was inserted. It was this "hand sized" incision that proved to be a problem. One day while changing the dressing I noticed the wound was entirely to red.
We rushed him to the doc and she put him on some potent antibiotics. If I recall correctly it was either the next day or the one after when I hear hubby calling me from the bathroom. He's sitting on the john and nasty looking blood is pouring from the incision onto the floor!! We rush him back to the doc and sure enough there is an infection. Doc yanks some of the staples and opens the wound. I'm given a quick course on how to PACK said wound with fresh dressing every day. Before all the staples were removed the packing was a bitch to say the least. The gauze had to be shoved back under the staples with one of those really long Q-tip thingys. The trick was to avoid snagging the gauze on the staples. To make a long story short, the staples were eventually removed and the packing/unpacking went on until the incision finally closed.
Hubby was finally cleared to return to work and so far all is well.
