O Seroma...

So at the ER on March 21st they confirmed that I indeed had another seroma and they called my NS and he said for me to go home and call the office on Monday. I really wanted to stay the night in the hospital, I know most people try to stay out of hospitals but I've learned dealing with surgeons you get attention much quicker if your on their list of patients to visit in the morning before surgery or before their office hours. So Monday morning first thing I called and they would see me on Tuesday morning. We went and I was quite disappointed because in the ER they had only done a shunt series and an ultrasound of my stomach but before I left they had asked my NS (or it could've been a NS on call) if I needed a CT and they said no the ultrasound should do. Ya it wasn't they wanted me to go get a CT so I did that and then went home to wait for their call. I didn't get a call until Thursday afternoon. Since my surgeon has never seen a seroma in his patients he wanted to consult with 2 general surgeons on what to do so of coarse that took days. lol. And both surgeons agreed I needed a pig tail drain, so they scheduled me for Monday the 29th to get it placed. (see this was the reason why I wished I would've been in the hospital instead of sent home, if I would've stayed I would've had that drain put in prolly on Tuesday instead of waiting until the following Monday and this whole time I was in severe pain not being able to do anything but lay there)

So my drain, the procedure was alot like a spinal tap as far as pain levels and set up and even the room it was in. A radiologist did it. He numbed me up with lidocain and then inserted the drain. I have me a lil bag that looks like an IV bag and I have to empty it and record the fluid every day.

I'm scheduled to get the drain out tomorrow morning at 9am in my NS office but I don't know if that's going to happen because it was suppose to stop draining and it hasn't. I have drained a total of 2225cc's in 8 days. And just in the last 3hrs I've drained 75cc so we'll see if it comes out.

It really hasn't been bad as far as pain and mobility. The first day I was in a lot of pain so I was worried I was going to be like that all week but that pain went away and it's been rather comfortable. But the bath/shower part OMG...I love baths I'm the type of person that takes atleast 2 baths a day and then I add a shower to wash my hair every other day or every day and they told me my only rule was not to get this wet and to wrap it in just saran wrap to shower. Well I knew from experience with my LP shunt surgeries and having staples in my back that I couldn't get wet that this saran wrap technique wasn't good so I figured I'd have Lee give me sponge baths and just wash my hair at the kitchen sink except on Tuesday morning before my doctors appointment I'd wrap up in saran wrap and take a real shower since I want to be clean to go out in public and if I did get it wet I'd be about to get it out. Well Sunday morning I felt so gross...we had done a couple sponge baths/body wipe downs and washed my hair a couple times but I just needed a shower. So when Lee got home we put some guaze type stuff and taped it where the drain is and then wrapped up in saran wrap and then taped the tops...yeah I was in there for 5 seconds and could feel water seeping thru so I grabbed a towel and held it on my tube area hoping it'd help but it didn't. I took it all off and it was wet. Oops. I don't think the actual drain got wet because the dr. had put a bandage over it so I think it was fine but that bandage did get wet. So bottom line the saran wrap crap don't work and don't listen to your doctors.

Ok so that is it so far...I guess I need to go to sleep for a lil while before I have to get up to head to the doctors office. I'll update after some time.