BIG OUCH this morning....

Oh YES.. It was definitely a big OUCH!

Got to the hospital at 8am, registered, was at the doctors clinic by 8.20am, and his assistant (Ms Wong) was there by 8.30am - on the dot. And, Yes, it turned out to be dressing change on both the back AND the leg, not just the leg.

Ms Wong's original plan, for the leg at least, had been to just re-do the elastic bandaging holding the dressing in place. But when she took the bandage OFF, it looked such a mess, she agreed with me that it would be best to change the dressing as well. She did warn Husband, before taking the dressing off - and YES IT WAS PAINFUL!!! I could see how tense the muscles were in Husband's back and legs, in an effort not to scream. And THEN (to compound the pain) she had to clean the area, using just saline solution and cotton wool, then drying it with gauze, before putting a new dressing on it. Oh man, if Husband's muscles had been any more tense they would have cracked under the pressure! A description of the area: BRIGHT RED, 3inches square, with little bits of blood oozing out in one or two spots, AND (this was exciting!) new skin already showing through around the edges!!

As to the back, that was relatively simple (though taking the bandages off was time consuming as there were so many layers - pressure plaster, gum-gee, more pressure plaster, gauze, bacti-gras dressing). The surgical wound, and the area to which the skin was grafted, all look good - clean, healthy, healing well, and the graft seems to have taken well as well. So, she cleaned everything, put another layer of bactigras over the skin graft area, a layer of gauze soaked in povidone iodine over that, then clean dry gauze over the surgical wounds and a layer of gum-gee (a single layer this time) over the whole lot, and all held in place by pressure plasters.

Back to see the plastic surgeon AND the colorectal surgeon on Saturday morning. At the colorectal surgeon, the final sutures come off the stomach (where the ileostomy was) and a final probe of Husband's abdominal region will be done, to check that all is OK. As for the plastic surgeon - the dressings on back and leg all come off again, to check progress, and some of the staples will be removed from the surgical scar at the back, and then everything re-dressed as needed.

Oh yes, other than all the above, we have some celebrations today - to celebrate the birthday of my sister (today) and sister-in-law (tomorrow) ... Brother and sister-in-law will be here by 4pm or so, and we are having tea (a mild term for the amount of food that we are going to consume!) to celebrate. Chocolate cake, beef cutlets, curry puffs, and, of course, Earl Grey tea to drink. Unfortunately bro and sis-in-law have to scoot off back to Melaka this evening as they have a dinner appointment, but the rest of us are having dinner with my sis - all organised, cooked and planned by our Mum. Chicken beriyani - yum!!!

So, some good things are happening this week, to lift us out of the doldrums of the last few weeks, and that is such a nice feeling.

If anything "news"-worthy happens between now and Saturday I shall update my blog, but, if not, the next update will only be on Sat, after we have seen the two surgeons.

So, till the next posting, stay safe, stay HEALTHY!