They should go in and clear it out anyway, in my opinion. It's likely that hard lump is a collection of organised blood which, as they've said, can be a bit of a risk for infection. But if you get away with that, you will very likely have that hard lump long term anyway, though hopefully not painful.
Actually, I think what's happened is that you had, or still have, a very small blood vessel leaking deep inside the wound. And yes, I have seen such cases a number of times during my career.
To explain this more: usually during the surgery, the surgeon will carefully check all the exposed muscles and other tissues for these oozing vessels - 'little bleeders' as we call them which is correct in both senses of the term! Sometimes they are very tiny, smaller than a noodle. He may well have sealed it with diathermy (a kind of cautery) or it may have sealed naturally by the normal clotting process. But after the op, as you woke up and your blood pressure returned to normal, that clot could have been dislodged so the vessel started oozing again. Once a collection of blood gets to be 2-3 days old it becomes 'organised' or clotted just as it would if it was left in a bowl and may even get to look a little like liver! With small clots, the body can absorb them with no problem but the bigger they get, the harder it is for the body to deal with and so a open 'clearing out' is required and also to check that the 'little bleeder' is not still leaking. But once it is cleared out and stitched up again, it should heal pretty readily.
It's a real risk that the clot itself can host bugs which just love that environment but it's about a 20% risk only, I'd say.
I hope all this isn't too much information for you but I think it helps to know what's going on.
United States
