Today's post is an update of where I am currently.
I am pleased to say that the cold has properly gone now - yay!
Secondly my surface wound was re looked at by the wound nurse on Monday 6th Jan and she felt that the silver nitrate treatments were not really working- she has officially diagnosed the area (which is only around 2 inches or so) as what they call over granulation- what this means is the bottom layers of skin are rising above the top layer and not letting the top layer of skin heal properly. Apparently this can be quite common but where you are told by the hospitals- "Do not touch the scabs, they will leave when they want to"...this means that over granulation can be harder to spot as it sits under the scabby parts. How I knew it was not right was by the gunky look and feel and bit of a smell (sorry if TMI but just in case anyone else is dealing with this currently!) Never be worried to see a GP, Nurse or speak with your specialist nurse/team to check this. I had to have around 3-4 appointments before this was actually diagnosed and sorted as over granulation cannot heal itself purely with oral antibiotics, it almost always requires a topical type of treatment. It's not a serious condition by any means but it does require treatment.
As I am roughly 11- 12 weeks post op now the wound should have healed but as the conventional silver nitrate treatment hasn't worked I now have a topical cream called Haelan Cream to help the process. So far so good and I will see the wound nurse again in a few weeks to check if it's all worked. Just to add the rest of the wound has apparently healed very well so we just need to get this part sorted and then we're good to go!
The below picture just shows at the top the magic cream and below picture on the right hand side is the patch where I have over granulation- as I say only around an inch to two inches- the rest of the wound is all doing fine!
Something the specialist wound nurse recommended doing was washing my hair with a mild shampoo or better a baby shampoo- nobody had mentioned this to me previously so for anyone after surgery when you are allowed to wash your hair make sure you wash your hair with a baby shampoo!! This may sound like common sense but when I could wash my hair again around 2-3 weeks post op I just used standard shampoo and conditioner but baby shampoo is supposedly much better for you.
So last week I also had an appointment with the Vocational Rehabilitation team at my hospital in London. They are quite a unique service which is just starting out but they are there to help patients with the transition back to work. As this was my second appointment we agreed on a draft letter which will be sent to my employer. In the letter there are recommendations for what I need to help me return. It's all pretty standard stuff which you would expect such as making sure I have proper phased return hours (with the hope to build back up to full time but this will be assessed), fatigue monitoring, shadowing colleagues or having an assistant to help me initially and making sure I have structured breaks and an hour long lunch break within my day. I am hoping to return to work in February so I will keep you all posted as to how this goes.
My next hospital appointment is 23rd January and this is to have my post op assessment with my Neurosurgeon and to review how everything is going. It is likely then I will be released from the surgery team as I do not require any further surgery currently but I will continue to work with my Neurologist and Specialist Nurse who will monitor me. I am not having an MRI before the appointment on 23rd Jan- I thought I would be but I think they will be using the MRI I had before I left the hospital so the next MRI is likely to be at some point in the early part of this year but hopefully they will let me know more about this.
So where I live we've had a bit of flooding (I think a lot of people living in the UK are experiencing this right now) but Wednesday was a wonderful sunny day and I took this picture in my living room- I don't know what it is but I always seem to get these great beams of light in that room and I think they look magical. I like this time of year when its a bit cold or crisp as it gives me the chance to
wear some of the hats I have in my beret collection :) I love a good hat!
Lots of love,
Gem
No comments:
Post a Comment