There has been a huge gap in my humor writing of late. This past February, I began a battery of medical tests that ended, on April 4th, 2006 in a total abdominal hysterectomy with oopherectomy. In other words, I was spayed. What should have been a relatively uncomplicated procedure was anything but routine.
A week after my surgery, I returned to the doctor’s office to have my surgical staples removed. The staples were removed, only to reveal that the incision had not healed - my skin and underlying tissue were open. I spent another five days in the hospital with IV antibiotics running, and three times daily wound changes (morphine, take me away) , until two days before discharge. A wound vacuum dressing was applied at that time, and I was discharged with a portable vacuum pump, with thrice weekly dressing changes by a visiting nurse.
I spent five weeks on the pump, with a one week break after the first dressing change (I lost approximately a unit of blood after the first dressing change - I had to beg my surgeon to let me leave the E.R.). I was physically and emotionally drained. The only inspiration I had regarded the vacuum pump that I was tethered to.
When I was finally delivered from the flatulence machine that was the vacuum pump, I had another three weeks of “no heavy lifting or exertion” until my incision totally healed. Wouldn't you know that the very DAY that I was able to go back to normal activities, I overdid it (I was chaperoning for my daughter’s school, as they attended a teen arts festival), with a small tear to the newly healed scar. Another few weeks of limited activity followed, with a minor case of the blues as a result. Writing humor just wasn’t something I could do with any sincerity.
I have been left with a rather interesting scar, as a result of having used the wound pump to speed healing of my open surgical wound. As a result, the front of me looks a lot like the back of me. Now, having a set of frontal buttocks is not a welcome addition to my anatomy, but it has inspired me to write. The only way I can handle this large, disfiguring scar is to find the humor and write about it, until I can have the scar excised. There are a lot of columns to be written, and many pounds to lose, before that happens.
©2006 Kathleen M. Wooton, M.D.
Please visit my monthly humor column : Kathy's Kaleidoscope
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