Owie

I know I haven’t been keeping you all updated on what is going on in our lives. I’ve been too busy to do so. I will update you on the most important happening now and then catch you up on the other stuff in later posts.

Greg had surgery last Thursday. He had a pilonidal cyst removed from his tailbone area. What is a pilonidal cyst you ask?

A Pilonidal (Abscess, Cyst, Sinus, Dimple) is an abscess in the natal cleft (more commonly referred to as your butt crack) that tends to become infected and cause intense pain and drainage. Sometimes a Pilonidal contains hair and sometimes they don't.

Please note the phrase "intense pain." We’ll talk about that more later.

Greg had been seeing the doctor for a couple of months about this abscess. The doctors had been giving him antibiotics, but it wasn't touching the infection. He knew it needed to be removed, but his surgeon didn’t prepare him for what was to come. He went in to surgery last Thursday and had a golf ball-sized abscess removed. Stop and think about how big that is. Nowadays with this surgery they cut out the abscess and all its “sinuses.” The incision was about 3 inches long and 2 inches deep (I do have pictures if you’d like to see them). This type of wound has to heal from the inside out in order to prevent infection and reoccurrence of the abscess. So he has this big open wound on his butt now. He has to go in and have the dressing changed on it every day.

That’s right. EVERY day he goes in and has a nurse rip the tape off, yank the gauze out of the wound, wash it out with saline, dry it, stuff new gauze in and tape a big ol’ bandage over it. This goes on for about 8 weeks. And then it won’t be fully healed for around 10 months! Somehow the doctor neglected to tell him about this part of the surgery. He made it sound like they just went in, cut it, stitched it, and away he went. Um, no. I actually have learned how to do the ripping, stuffing, etc. What a skill to have!

So my poor Snookie has been in terrible pain for the last week. He can’t sit, can’t lie on his back, can’t lie on his stomach, and has trouble lying on his side so he’s getting very little sleep. To make things even worse he has a very sensitive stomach and doesn’t tolerate pain medication well. So he can’t even get good drugs to take the edge off. In short, he is completely miserable. Poor guy. So send him words of cheer. gregleibrand@comcast.net. He’ll appreciate it.