Monday night after her shower Amaya called up, “mom, I want you to see my incision in person.” Ugh, overcome with feelings of stress and worry I headed down. This is what I saw…
I felt sucker punched, I thought things were fine and healing well. In fact, earlier that day one of her teachers asked me how she was doing. I happily and honestly said she was doing well. She’s off her crutches, her pain is minimal, she’s walking well, and her incisions were healed (or so I thought). So when I saw this incision, one that looked healed weeks and days ago, I was shocked, disappointed and worried. I put some antibiotic cream and a bandaid on it. On close inspection it looked deep, much deeper than I’d like and would expect six and a half weeks post surgery. She also complained of pain at the site, not only when she moved but coming in waves. Worried and stressed I sent her to bed, not how I want to feel before bed.
I woke up early Tuesday to make some calls. I wasn’t sure if this was an urgent care or emergency room visit. I spoke with a nurse who sent us to the emergency room. The ER doctor said it looks like one of the lower layers had come apart before fully healing so when the top layer of stitches came off the wound opened. He said he was unsure how to proceed; he said it was a tossup between either using a scalpel to open the wound and make fresh edges then stitch the wound or to continue with wound care (daily bandage changes and a lot of waiting and hoping). He asked for my preference which I had none then I asked him for his (after all he’s the doctor). He said if it were him he would go with option one but asked what Amaya would prefer. As the patient and almost adult I felt she should have some input. Through tears she asked that we wait on the recuting and stitching, mostly because of timing. See we were about to start a full days drive to visit family friends. I agreed the timing wasn’t great, but her well-being was most important. I hate the tossups; it’s a gamble and I don’t want to take any extra risks with Amaya’s health. I hated the idea of re-cuting and starting over with a new wound. The doctor said it wouldn’t hurt to wait a week, he suggested adding steri-strips to help gather and close the wound. Then we would continue with wound care and monitor for infection at home. He cleaned the wound thoroughly then applied the steri-strips. It took four steri-strips to close the wound; showing it was bigger than I had realized. He showed me how to replace them and sent me with a kit to do it at home.
On our way home Amaya apologized for causing us more stress and thanked me for taking her to the doctor. She’s always done that, but I reminded her she’s got nothing to apologize for. This is what we do, we love her and we take care of her. It’s part of the mom job, stress and all. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
He added some gauze and tape over the steri-strips so that the wound wouldn’t get bumped on our trip.
My steri-strip kit…wish me luck.
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