Hello everyone !  I hope everything is going well for everyone.  In my last post, I told everyone about my “Big” surgery, this time I would like to tell you about an experience I had after the surgery.  I will tell you one thing, if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all!!

When I returned home from having surgery at Mayo this past October, I noticed a large bump underneath my incision.  As the days went by, I also noticed that this bump was getting bigger by the day.  I got home on a Saturday and by Friday of that same week, I spotted some liquid seeping out from under my incision.  The surgeon had told me before I left that if I seen any liquid coming out and if I had a fever, to go to the emergency room as soon as possible because I could have an infection.  I called Mark at work and told him what was going on and that I believe I should go to the ER before I start developing a fever.  He agreed and left work a little early to take me.

When we arrived at the ER, boy, was it crowded!  This was during the time RSV and the Rhinovirus was prevalent throughout the area and there were a prethora of children throughout the ER.  We sat there for a total of 3 hours before we were seen in a room.  During our wait, a nurse needed a urine sample while I was still sitting in the waiting room.  She gave me a cup and I went into the bathroom.  OMG!  My clothes were soaked all in the front!  My shirt and pants were soaked and I didn’t have a change of clothes with me.  The bump had exploded and I didn’t feel or see it until I got into the bathroom.  Before we left, I had put a bandage on the area where it was leaking, however, then it was a small leak.  Now, I had to go back and wait in the waiting room that was packed full of people, and sit there with soaked clothes.  I told the nurse, however, she acted like it was no big deal.  I felt as if everyone was staring at me.

We finally get back to a room.  The nurse wanted me to put on a gown, however, I told her that my clothes were soaked with some kind of unknown liquid coming from underneath my incision.  She just had me expose the area where the liquid was coming from.  The doctor came in and took a look and told us it looked like a seroma.  A seroma is a pocket full of liquid that developes under an incision usually after a surgery.  It grows until it finally pops.  The scary thing is it could come back at any time and expode again multiple times and it could do this up to a year!  I was kind of low-key freaking out!  The doctor squeezed the area until all that was coming out, came out.  They gave me some pain pills and bandaged the area up and sent me home.

For the next 3 weekends, the area leaked a lot.  It was weird, it wouldn’t happen through the week but only on the weekends.  Anyway, it stopped flowing finally and life got a little better.  It never fails, I always have some kind of issue after a surgery, whether it be a seroma or being put on a ventilator, something is going to try and take me down but I’m still here fighting it tooth and nail!  All you can do is take this disease one day at a time because it will try and do it’s best to overwhelm you any chance it can get!  If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.  It’s never a dull moment with me!

Chow for now,

Kelly