I've been a bit awol so let me give a bit of an update. I just needed a some time to regroup my brain.
Two Mondays ago was my first painful vac dressing change of the week, using the new foam, in the one deep tunnel in my disgusting wound, that the head of the vac company was pretty sure was the cause of the drainage not able to be contained and drawn up by the vac. They have very specific instructions how to use this foam, but when my nurse first used it the previous Friday, she sorta winged it, and of course by the time I got home from brunch Saturday, I was wet. I patched and taped all weekend, it was useless.
So Monday with specific instruction, I tried to be hopeful. Well 2 hours after she left I was sopping wet. At that point I just went into total, and uncontrollable meltdown mode. I think I really scared my poor husband. He was close to calling 911 . He called the nurse, she came back Tuesday, redid it, trying yet another suggested technique. That lasted also barely 2 hours. I was sitting and crying non stop all day. I got a callback from the district nurse wound director at KCI (vac company), she scheduled an onsite visit with me and my nurse for Wednesday. She came, her and my nurse, spent TWO hours working on me, adding a border of stoma strip paste totally around the wound edge, as well as bridging the tracking pad tube. She said, this will work, she had had many very tough wound cases, and has been doing this for 20 years. I was exhausted from being worked on for 2 hours by 2 nurses. I took a Percocet and sat down, tried to relax.
Well ONE FLIPPING hour later, I'm flipping wet. My skin is just destroyed from this tape and sitting in this drainage. I called this nice nurse/expert and told her, she was just flabergasted! Almost could not believe it. So now I've had 3 painful changes in 3 days. I'm raw, and sore, and really ready to kill myself. Thursday I went to the wound doctor, sat in the room with the nurse there, just bawling, and trying to talk. Everything she asked, have you tried this, or that I said yes, yes, and yes. She talked to the doctor, and they both came back in the room both caring, but frustrated.
He says the way this size wound should heal is with the vac, but sees the futility, at least for now, that if the dressing can't seal, and I'm fighting skin issues as well as the wound, its counter productive. So, he gave me a one week vac-cation. They did a dressing with a calcium alginate gel like thing in the wound, covered with "abd" pads, then taped with a cloth tape. They are not sure if this will hold either. I came home, and the tape was already loosening. I reinforced with duoderm, and more of the cloth tape. It is still dry for now, 6 hours later, which is about the longest I've stayed dry all week.
Sorry if this is all "tmi", and sorry I have not been a good supportive member here but those few days, it was too hard to be going thru 2 boxes of tissues, crying hysterically, and hold the tablet and type. I'm somewhat stable, at the moment, I enjoyed my week of freedom from that miserable vac.
My nurse came Saturday to redo this non vac dressing. She came again this past Monday, we spent a few days at the beach house, then Thursday, back to the wound Dr. I told the nurse how much less miserable I was without that evil soul and spirit killing machine. She said the wound did improve, even without the vac. The Dr came in and agreed, but said there were a few small areas of hypergranulation, that he needed to burn off with silver nitrate sticks. They used lidocaine, and I did not feel pain till later in the day. BUT, knowing my horror with the vac, he now is keeping it off, as long as I see him once a week, and it continues to improve. So for now, no more vac! I had it on close to 4 months. He thinks this wound still had months to go, :-(, but for now, I'm vac free.
The actual hip feels ok, not perfect, and now my knees are bothering me, as I start moving more, but ibuprofen seems to help. It's just such a long long road to recovery that I never thought would rob me of so many months of my life, and pretty much my whole summer of swimming. I try to be positive, but it's not easy. So that's what I've been up to lately.
United States
no problem. Ya the soul and spirit killing vac was on me for almost 4 lousy months. It's off, for now, hopefully for good. I know sometime the way this forum works only letting us have one thread to follow our recovery, can be confusing and tedious to read all the way thru as things change and really turn into other issues for those of us who do not have a straightforward recovery. It can be alot to read to be up to date on some of the longer problematic recovery journeys.
