October 2, 2007 - Gory Details

This past week has been a blur of activity. I was going to touch some of the highlights, but opted for gently massaging them instead . . .

WARNING - NASTY DETAILS ALERT: On Monday last week Mel decided I should be her wound care specialist. Hello. That's a recipe for disaster. I've seen what the surgery sites look like, and it doesn't bother me. But last week she started worrying about a couple of spots and talking about eschar (that's Greek for "yuck") and debridement. I wish I had a picture of my face when she first showed me. I think I covered my eyes. It was a gut reaction and I felt bad afterwards because I was worried she thought I couldn't look at her. It wasn't that at all. Luckily she knows me and knows my aversion to anything involving blood/guts/puss/needles/etc. so she wasn't offended by my reaction. I think she giggled, but she may have been high from the meds and the position she had to hold her head to point out the problem areas.

The first spot she was worried about was ringed in red and had a nice milky center. Hold on. I'm hyperventilating just thinking about it. She was asking me to remove the whitish-yellow center using a pair of sterilized tweezers, while I was trying not to faint. I did my best. Unfortunately, my best debridement is worse than no debridement at all. I couldn't get any of it off and decided the proper solution for all parties involved would be to defer this job to the nurse. There was another much bigger area that had blistered up and was filled with juice that looked like root beer without the fizz. I had developed my sea legs by now, so I popped that thing like I would any blister - eyes closed and chomping with the tweezers. That time Mel was the one who almost fainted.

Just to be safe, Melisa called the doctor and we went to see her last Tuesday morning. She said everything looked as expected and was healing nicely considering there wasn't really enough skin on the left (cancer) side to start with. I also got her to prescribe Mel some "Knock It Off" and a bottle of "Quit Trying To Do Everything". She's been terrible at taking those for the last several days. But don't worry. I'm on it.

This past weekend was awesome for me because my brother, Jeremy, was visiting from Washington. We got in some good quality brother time playing Halo 3 and Wii. We also spent a lot of time at my Dad's with the kids, so Mel got some good rest after over-doing it a bit last week.

This morning, we had another appointment with Dr. Shulman. It was the much anticipated and historic visit where she started filling the tissue expanders. Instant boobies. The Right Side has healed more since the surgery, so it got the full 60cc and triumphed with today's Best in Show. The Left Side is the one with the afformentioned wounds. It received 30cc and still came in with an Honorable Mention. Don't give up on the Left Side yet. It's a fighter and this battle isn't over. I'm confident it will give Righty a run for it's money. Mel's just hoping for an even tie.