Not Such A Good Morning

Yesterday, shortly after my posting, I was ordered a CT scan to try to explain my latest temp spike and jump in WBC count.  So I cheerily drank yet another gallon of nasty oral contrast and got run through the scanner.  Later that day, my surgeon called to tell me that they found yet another collection of fluid above the prior bad site.  So today I had yet another drain installed.  This time the entrance is high up on my abdomen, just below my rib on my left front.  It was not a joy to get put in.  Initially they tried to get it in from the back or side, but the bottom part of my lung was in the way.

So the front door was the best approach.  At first I could watch, which was probably not such a good thing.  The sensation was like being staked like a vampire with a plastic tube and then rolled into the CT ring for a scan to see where it ended up.  This went on for five or six times.  Finally what looked like the A string of a guitar painted blue was run down the hole to serve as a guide to the tube's final resting place.  At this point they covered my eyes.  Next the tube itself was run down the hole following the wire and the pigtail end was engaged.  This was the most uncomfortable of all.

This type of drain has a string inside the lumen (fancy word for tube) that connects to the very tip, when pulled taut, causes the end to curl up.  This string is then locked off on a stud outside the wound.  Kind of neat, and it helps hold it in place.

So that was this morning's entertainment.  Mom came up last night and she's here reading magazines, Jakki came by, but she's got lots of studying to catch up on from last week.  Emelie will be coming by this evening after getting her Nov. bus pass down town.  In good news, my doc put forward Friday as the projected day for me to go home, as well as answering a few other of our concerns.  The main event will come tomorrow when we actually figure out what's in the section they drained.  If it has amylase (a digestive enzyme), that could be bad because it might mean that what's left of my pancreas is backing up into my abdomen again, or something else is leaking.  If it cultures for an infection, then we can try to treat it with anti-biotics and hopefully it will go away.  If it's just post-surgical bleeding or fluid, then just drying it up will help.  Personally, I'm just hoping for the latter.

--  Until tomorrow...