"Wait and see"

"Wait and see". That's what one of my lovely plastic surgeons told me today. I'm a whole 8 weeks post surgery, whoop whoop. Whoop de freakin whoop alright. Two months down the line just one month off the 3 month milestone. How am I doing? Am I on track? Am I where we expected me to be? Have I reached all your expectations? What would we do differently if we did it all again? What did we learn? I feel like one of my own freakin experiments....And the conclusion is that further work may still be required. WTF??!!?? 

To be absolutely honest here I'm having a day of devastation. Not to be confused with degustation although I would much prefer a feeding frenzy right now of wonderful gourmet delights all packaged up in easy to eat bite sized bundles of lushness! I'm getting side tracked here sorry. Those mini burgers or freshly made pakora. Oops. Sorry. Back to the feelings of desolation, frustration, anxiety, and the "what about me, it isn't fair, la de de da la de da da da". So I rock up to the dressing clinic this morning to get flappy's hole checked out and have a post hospital-stay chat with one of the Docs. The good news is that the wee hole that squirted the pus has healed nicely thanks to a wee bit of silver. So just keeping that covered and clean. The Doc sat down and told me the scans that were taken at the time of the infection showed a gap beneath the hole that they are concerned about. The gap may just heal itself if it is shallow enough or it may hang around and decide to grow a few more bug cocktails. We'll have to "wait and see". In the meantime, I'm on the antibs for another week until I go back to see Dr J who is most likely to stop them so we can "wait and see". 

So there are two possible outcomes of the "wait and see" approach that I can figure. The first and most hopeful is that we'll keep waiting and we will see no infection. If I were to draw what that feels like it would look like this:

The second option is that after maybe two weeks, or it could be six, who knows? I'll wake up one day and my neck will look like it's on fire. I could be anywhere in the country or in the world or I could be sitting still at home, "waiting and seeing". If this happens it will be a visit to ED but this time treatment will involve draining and cleaning out the gap, then sticking it together to close it. And this would involve another surgery..... You know the score, the "I'm awake" fiber optic intubation and the needle in the neck to relax the epiglottis so the breathing tube can go down. At least we know how to safely send me to sleep now. I'll know what to expect. Experienced hands. So it took me the drive from the hospital to straighten my head around all of this devastation and turn it around to be something manageable and not so devastating. 

I'm not usually down for too long, emotionally. I just need time to process. Can be ten minutes or a day under the duvet. Today it was both. Ten minutes in the car and then the afternoon under the duvet. I'm tired today. Getting up to pee 3 times a night cos of the Stabilising drug is a factor but not the only one. I'm mentally exhausted from trying to be on top of everything that's been happening to me. Trying to be one step ahead all the time. I'm feeling pretty yuk and over it to be honest. It feels like I have to reset the clock and start over again. Slowly slowly. But then I also have to keep hold of hope. Can't let that go. Cos there is a lot of hope in this latest news. And I know I am unable to be down for long cos I am a superhero aren't I? But for today, I'm mainly feeling devastated so I'm going back to the duvet with my cheese and crackers.