Well today was the expected and determined to be the day that the tubes came out. As I had said earlier I had 4 drains put in my legs after surgery, one for each incision. I had a different Nurse Practitioner today than i have had in the past, but I don't mind. I cam prepared too. I took 2 pain killers before the appointment, and I tryed mixing it up. But nothing ever seems to really help. I took one percacet and one oxycodone 30 minutes before my appointment. As I entered into the room I removed my shoes, lifted mysef onto the table and slid out the foot extender. I've got this down. The NP asked about pain etc, and I said it was average, and we got to work. We took off all the ace bandages, gauze wrap and gauze pads. Next I asked for a towel to hold (squeeze) instead of Mom's hand. The NP walked me through everything each time which was nice. We started with the right outside incision. First she snipped the stitch holding the drain in at the top; no pain. Then she removed the stitch;, slight pain. Next she removed any crusties that had formed over the opening; more pain. She then said she was going to make me breath a bit, and pull the drain out in one swift motion. I will warn you; this hurts like a BITCH. I have been through this many times now and this is by far the worst part of surgery. Last time I was given a morphine injection, and that didn't even help! I said I was ready, and in about a second and a half it was out. It hurt, but not absolutely horribly. Wow, it wasn't horrible. Don't get me wrong, you could feel it being sucked out of a tiny hole, and it hurt, but it has been much, much worse in the past. We moved onto the right inside. She snipped the stitch, took the stitch out, removed the crusties, this was all just like the last one, maybe a bit worse. Next came the bad part. She pulled the drain out, and ohh my lord. You know it hurts when it takes your breath away. You can't even breath at all, can't swear, can't move. That's when you know it's bad. That is what it normally feels like. The left inside was just the same excruciating pain, but thankfully the left outside only hurt as much as the right outside. Why is this; I cannot explain. All I can say is that after you go through something like this, childbirth should be a breeze; however it will take longer. I took a few pictures at the visit, including one to show the size of the jackson-pratt drains. I'll give you a hint. Do you know how big a pen is? At this point we are all done. We put some gauze over the open 'blow-holes', we now call them these from all the fluid that came out of them after the drains were out and the NP was expressing the incision area. The holes may also may resemble blow-holes in their size too. We wrapped them up and we were on our way.
If you can believe it I was already feeling better. To get those drains out turns the recovery process forward about 10 steps. I went home, ate some lunch, took a small nap, and enjoyed the 81 degree weather we had today! Awesome. Did you know it's the middle of March in Wisconsin, because Mother Nature apparently turned the weather forward at least 10 weeks. But that's okay with me.
As we are getting into the evening I have been icing quite a bit today, but haven't had any pain meds since before the appointment this morning. Mom gave me my injection tonight and it barely hurt! And we undid and redid the ace bandages and gauze because I thought it was leaking onto the ace bandages, but it was not. We replaced the gauze and rewrapped the bandages, and we should be good to go. I cannot wait for tomorrow, because I get to shower as soon as the blow-holes are scabbed over. Well I might do it a bit early, as I have not been able to do so since surgery; gross I know. But that's all for now, we are on the final stretch!!!!!
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