So what I haven’t told you from this past weekend, is that one of the steri strips on my bottom right incision fell off and what I found underneath was not good. When my surgeon took off the bandage, he applied steri strips and told me that once those fell off to apply one more set of them. When the first ones fell off, there was a gap and so I placed a steri strip directly over that area. I did clean the gap and noticed that it was bleeding a bit. On Saturday, that particular steri strip fell off and the “hole” that was under it was very deep and black. I was worried that it was starting to tunnel. I emailed my surgeon’s assistant with a photo and he said to keep it clean with alcohol and apply antibiotic ointment and a bandaid on it and change that twice daily. He said if it gets worse to come in this week. I had water therapy yesterday and showed it to my PT there who recommended I go see the doctor. It had started discharging a yellowish fluid which also worried me. So I emailed and my surgeon told me to come in yesterday.

He took one look at the area and said I needed a week of antibiotics and that I couldn’t get in any water until it was closing and starting to heal. I immediately started crying. That was not the news I wanted to hear. The worst part was that Chris and I were suppose to be leaving on Thanksgiving for five days in Kauai. We splurged on a really nice resort so that I would be comfortable and could be in the heated pool and Chris could go surfing close by. If I couldn’t go in water, then there was no activity I could do in Hawaii. That literally was my only thing I could do. I was instructed not to go on a helicopter ride, I couldn’t hike, I couldn’t surf or even get in the ocean because of the waves, so all I had was the pool and now I didn’t even have that. I also didn’t want to take antibiotics. I was almost off all the other meds and didn’t want to start another one, especially an antibiotic. Henry, my surgeon’s assistant, is amazing. He talked to me like a patient and then also talked to me like a nurse. I knew he was right with what he was saying and I knew that I needed to do what he was instructing. I just didn’t want to! He was so nice and tried to comfort me. He gave me a bunch of bandages, alcohol wipes and antibiotic ointment to use. I left so bummed out. I was scared to tell Chris because I feel like my recoveries just keep ruining everything we do. I hate being the cause of ruining something. We talked and took the night to think about what we should do and today decided to cancel our trip to Hawaii. With a note from my surgeon, we were able to cancel the resort, the rental car and our flights. What a bummer! I’d been looking forward to that trip since before this last surgery. I knew I’d need a getaway around this time and now that’s taken away from me. It was going to be so nice to spend some time with Chris away and to hopefully reconnect again. (Deep breath.) It’ll be ok. I’ll be ok. I know my body and my recovery needs to come first right now and I know deep down that this is the right decision. It just doesn’t make it any easier unfortunately.

*Update: So I got through the antibiotic. I was on Keflex and had to take 250mg four times a day for 7 days. For the first three days, my stomach was just wrecked. I didn’t feel well, my stomach was upset and I didn’t want to eat much. By day four, I felt totally fine and tolerated it well for the rest of the course. After two weeks of changing the bandage over the area, the hole got much shallower, the discharge is gone and the redness is gone. Staying out of the water for a bit and canceling Hawaii, was definitely the right call. The third week after I found the opening, a stitch finally broke through the skin. Henry had said this could all be caused from a suture and it could be an abscess. I pulled on the suture and snipped as close to the skin as possible. I then found a suture knot too and snipped that. I think that was what caused all of these issues! Stupid little bugger! Then a week after that, another suture came through. I went to pull it and snip it, but when I pulled, the suture just came out. It’s now all out and the hole is completely closed. Finally! The ironic thing is that this all happened on my scar revision incision. Of all the incisions, I can’t believe it’s on this one. So much for the revision!