Medical blah blah blah...

Been a rough three weeks since Jan. 5th's stent surgery.

The surgery itself went without any troubles. The recovery, though, has been a pain in the ass.

Incision's healing up nicely. Staples came out on the 22nd. I had about 2 weeks of "reflected" pain across my shoulder blades caused by the aortic aneurysm reacting to being bypassed by the stents. Percocet took care of that.

The major complication? Ever since the original aortic tear in 2010 and my bad kidney removal in 2011, this body of mine became a freaking sponge and collected about 100 pounds of water weight, especially around my waist and down both legs. Ever since the evening of Jan. 6th, when I tried to bandage the incision site right at the top of my right thigh, I started leaking like a sieve from there.

I ended up in the Emergency Room with a fever and got sent to Interventional Radiology to have a drain put in. I've got a 4th session with them this afternoon to see how things are progressing. They've treated the site with ethanol and Betadine to scar up and close off the lymph channel that's pushing all that fluid up into the incision area. The upshot of this is that I carry a collection bag, keep the incision clean, and hope that the next session will finish this off.

I have drained 6 quarts of "cellular fluid" (lymph?) since Jan. 6. Six freaking quarts. Fortunately most of that has been managed by the drain and baggies, so I'm not washing a dozen towels at a time trying to keep ahead of this crap.

The fluid loss comes up to about 8 pounds. Take THAT, Weight Watchers.

HAPPY 2015th BIRTHDAY, 'MURKA!!

pew pew, pew pew pew.