I went to see the plastic surgeon on Saturday and he is pretty happy with the progress of my healing scar revision incision. What struck me most was the fact that he said “I’m happy for you”. Yes. And I’m happy too. The scar, simply put, is a million times better than pre-revision.
I forgot to take a picture of it before putting on my silicone strip. When I took off the strip last week, the bottom part of the scar didn’t appear to be healing as well. In fact, there was some yellow discharge that was reminiscent of an infection. Scared out of my wits, I sent my cousin, who is a nurse, a panicked iMessage asking for advice. I was very literally in tears because I of course didn’t want to deal with an infection or have any other concerns where the wound was concerned.
Seeing that I was a panicked mess and it was too late at night for me to traipse off the the drugstore to buy saline, my cousin hopped on her white horse and came to rescue me. She used saline to clean the wound, then squeezed it to see if any discharge would come out. Either none or very little did. After that, she applied wet gauze on the wound with dry gauze on top. She then taped it to my stomach. She let me know that the saline would draw the drainage out of the wound. It was pretty small in her opinion and she wasn’t worried. I was!
The next day, I removed the gauze and there was a small amount of discharge on it. I let the wound air out for the day and did the same wet/dry gauze technique that my cousin did the night before just prior to going to bed.
The next morning, there was the tiniest bit of discharge. I decided not to wet/dry gauze the wound again.
Just two days later, what I thought was looking like a bad infection actually seems to gave resolved itself.
These pics may be a bit graphic, especially because I quadruple zoomed in with my camera haha. But this is what it looked like when I called my cousin. As you can see, there appears to be a hole with yellow in it. Scary looking up close to be honest.
After a couple of wet/dry gauze applications, then letting it heal without covering it, this is what it looked like. The top part of the wound has my silicone strip on it. I have left the bottom uncovered to allow it to heal a bit more before applying the silicone strip to it.
I think applying the silicone strip too early may have contributed to the bottom getting all yucky. I don’t think it was closed/healed enough, and therefore not ready for the strips as the instructions do state that the wound should be closed before putting the strips on. I thought it was, but clearly I was wrong. So we’re going to wait a bit this time.
I’m scheduled to see the surgeon again towards the end of next month. Here’s to hoping there is good progress.