Dehiscence
The word for the day is dehiscence. Well actually that was the word for last Friday, the day I should have written about this. Unfortunately, life got in the way.
I woke up last Friday, the last workday I had off before having to return to the grind of talks and travel, and discovered light bloodstains on the front of my nightgown. I immediately went to check my incision and discovered that there were pink bumps of tissue poking out from between the edges of my incision site. Oh no, I thought, this can’t be good.
I called my friend Lisa, the surgeon. “Lisa, I think my incision has dehisced,” I explained. “Does this qualify as an emergency?” She responded that while it wasn’t work calling 911, I should probably see Sam today. So then I called Sam.
“I’ve dehisced,” I told her at 7 AM.
“What?” she said, clearly alarmed.
“Well there is pink tissue poking out from between the edges of the incision,” I explained.
“Pink?” she asked, seeming intent on repeating pieces of what I had just said.
“Yeah, pink.”
“Well what is it?” she asked pointedly.
“How the heck should I know,” I retorted. “All I know is that it shouldn’t be there.”
“Could it be your intestines?”
“I doubt it, though I’ve never met my intestines up close and personal.”
“Well come in at 9 AM to be seen. This is not good.”
Duh, I thought.
Though I tried to convince husband that I would be fine driving myself to her office, he insisted on taking me himself (though it later proved to be the straw the broke the camel’s back and cost him his job, but that is another story entirely). After Sam tipped down the hall in her ubiquitous Prada shoes, she entered and had a look.
“Oh that’s just fat!” she said with relief. “Just fat. Boy I was so worried, but it’s just fat.”
“Say ‘it’s fat’ one more time and I am liable to smack you,” I retorted. “Even still, fat should not be sticking out between my incision.”
“Well I revised your scar a bit and stretched the skin tight in order to fit the edges together. Sometimes they loosen up, but it will be fine. The skin will heal over it.”
“Is that what fat looks like?” I asked looking down. “I thought it was supposed to be yellow, not pink.”
“It is yellow.”
“No, it’s pink.”
“Well it’s more yellow than pink.”
“Are we arguing hues here? All I know is that it doesn’t belong there.”
“It will heal. I’m just so glad that it turned out to just be fat.” (There she goes again, I thought.) You didn’t tell me it was fat when you called me this morning.”
“Well how would I know it was fat? Remember that I’m used to seeing people with their skin ON. And the last time I saw fat under the skin, it was on my medical school cadaver.”
“Oh, well it doesn’t look the same on someone alive,” she replied.
“Clearly,” I said, rolling my eyes.”
“You also have a little hole here from a fluid collection,” she went on. “You’ll have to pack it with iodoform gauze,” she said while exploring my hole with a cotton swab.
“Ouch!” I reacted. “Packing? Geez, I’m going to have to take this with me on the road next week.” That was a great image. Me standing in a Marriott bathroom poking gauze into my hole with a Q-tip.
“I’m so relieved,” she repeated. “I’m so glad it’s just…”
“Don’t say it again, or I will have to beat your ass, Prada shoes and all!”
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Eeek! Glad it wasn’t your intestines. Hope it heals over soon.
Glad you are on the mend!
Wow. Hope you feel better.