Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Vacuum Installed

Yesterday was installation day. It was also Brooke's birthday! A No Leg Talk policy was implemented for the whole day, so I didn't get a chance to update the blog until now.

The doctor's office had just switched wound vacuum companies, so I was the Guinea Pig. We had about six people in the exam room with a sales representative explaining how the vacuum worked.

Before we could put on the vacuum, I had to have "wound slime" scraped out of the wound. This stuff needs to be removed to expose the soft tissue underneath. As Dr. Borden cleaned away, it would hurt when the scraping tool touched the skin. She said she played a lot of Operation when she was growing up, so she was prepared.

Because the wound had borrowed underneath the skin about 2 or 3 mm, Dr. Border had to take a scalpel and remove the skin above it. The wound was covered with Lidocaine, so I was fine.

Here's what the wound looked like just before we put on the gauze. You can see how it's really grown in the last few days. It's vacuum time.





Here's the final product. Nothing too exciting, but hopefully each time we change this, the wound will be smaller. Right now, we're supposed to do a change two times a week.

I had new X-Rays taken last week, but didn't get chance to look at them until last night. My fibula still has not healed. There's a good chance it may never heal. The good news is it's a non-weight bearing bone, so I should be fine with the plate


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