Recovery mode

Ugh.

That’s about all I have to say.

Recovery is tough, and it’s not one of my favorite things. It’s nowhere to be found on the list of my favorite things. I’m a terrible patient — impatient, restless, and intolerant of my dependent state. However, I’m quite the pro at the recovery process now, after multiple surgeries, and don’t fight it as much as I did in the beginning. I’m not going to win patient of the year award in this lifetime, but I’m not gnashing my teeth over the process this time around. Baby steps.

In addition to the regular wear-n-tear on the old body that is anesthesia and surgery in general, I’m healing from a couple of very specific “injuries” from the procedure. Disclaimer: this picture is pretty gross, so if you have a weak stomach or get sicked out easily, scroll down now. 

That’s the bruise on the back of my leg as of Friday, two days post-surgery. I’ve got a matching one on the back of my other leg, but didn’t want to post two pics of such a gross site. The bruising has actually migrated downward in the last few days and is now approaching the back of my knees, so it’s even bigger than what’s shown above. Rather than incite a public riot (and because I feel like hell), I’m staying home and not subjecting anyone to seeing this as they’re out & about taking care of their business. It is triple-digit hot, though, so I’m wearing shorts. Yesterday the high in Houston was 107, that’s right 107, which is mighty hot even by Gulf Coast standards at the end of August. The bruising is still tender enough that even having clothes resting against my skin is painful, but I’d scare myself if I went sans clothes, so I’m sucking it up.  I am utterly amazed that people put themselves through the lipo process willingly and simply in pursuit of vanity. Not judging just saying “wow.”

The little red spot in the photo is the site of a couple of stitches, and they itch and pull a bit as they heal. There are 8 or so spots on my legs and chest; I haven’t counted all of them because frankly I haven’t been brave enough to look that closely. I also have 4 open “poke holes” that drained a bunch of yucky stuff the first two days but are healing up nicely now. I expect the stitches will come out sometime this week.

A slight complication arose yesterday: I didn’t feel good. A slight fever, sore throat, extreme fatigue, and overall malaise ruled. My doc asked me to call him over the weekend, especially if the fever didn’t go away. I appreciate how accessible he is to his patients, even on the weekends.  When my fever spiked yesterday afternoon and didn’t break, and when my skin at the original infection site became red, warm, and streaky, I knew I needed to call him but didn’t want to interrupt my weekend either. I stayed in my jammies and laid around all day yesterday, and when I didn’t feel a whole lot better this morning, I called.

We had a short, purposeful conversation that started with me saying, “I don’t think we need to panic” and ended with him saying, “I have surgery in an hour so come in right now. ” Amy and I appeared in his office post-haste. He said he thought about checking on me, but he knew that I would “start asking what about this? and what about that? and what are we going to do next? and when are we doing to do it?”

Really? Me?

That sounds so unlike me (ha!).

He knew that if I was in a bad way, I would call him, and I knew that it could wait until today. No need to go getting ahead of ourselves and risk getting myself admitted to the hospital on a Sunday night.

The fever was down this morning, and the red, warm, and streaky spot looked a little better. The pain is still there, but not as intense as yesterday. It feels like a hot, localized pinch. If I didn’t know that feeling so well from my multiple run-ins with post-surgery infection, I might think one of the stitches was pulling or it was just part of the healing process. But I know better.

After much poking and prodding of the hotspot, we decided to let it be and wait and see. I thought for sure he’d want to open it up and see if there was fluid to collect and culture, but he said nope, not at this stage, let’s give the newly rounded chest a chance to settle this on its own without us intervening. He extended my course of oral antibiotics just to be on the safe side, and as much as it pains me to admit this, I agree with him on both fronts. Really, we’ve done everything we can to prevent infection: a week of pre-surgery prophylactic antibiotics, 2 bags of 2 different IV antibiotics during the surgery, more oral antibiotics after surgery, the most thorough scrub-in process in the history of modern medicine, and over-the-top precautions to preserve a sterile field in the OR. At this point, if the infection can combat all of that, I will concede. But I will be a very sore loser.

The one thing we’ve got going for us in the anti-infection camp is the fact that this last surgery didn’t involve any foreign bodies. No tissue expanders and no implants, just good old-fashioned fat. It was sucked right out of my thighs (hence the super bruises) and injected right into my sunken chest. He carefully explained the fat-extraction process to Trevor and Amy while I was in the recovery room. 

from the personal photo library of Dr S

The plan is for me to lay low for the next 2 days, check in on Wednesday afternoon, and go from there. If I weren’t so tired and puny I’d be saying, “Come on with the healing already!”