The First Non-Wound Day

Five and a half weeks ago was Skip's flap surgery. She's been in bed, not sitting up, since then. Yesterday, she went back to Brigham and Women's Hospital to have the stitches out. We rode together in an ambulance so she wouldn't have to sit up en route to her appointment.

Imagine, riding in the stretcher for the brief distance between our front door to the ambulance was Skip's first fresh air since January 13th! I'm glad it was a cool, crisp day with no rain or inclement weather to ruin the moment.

At BWH's Wound Center, the ambulance drivers rolled her right into the examining room. After a short wait, two nurses came in to remove the stitches. The lead nurse was quite pleased to see how well the incision had healed. She mentioned that the last two flap incisions they'd seen had both been failed operations, so she was particularly happy about Skip's great outcome.

Turns out, though, that Skip's not out of the woods yet. She is only supposed to sit in short bursts, increasing a bit every day, until after a month she can sit up for 2 hours at a time. How naive I was ... I thought she'd be back spending a good amount of time in her chair right out of the gate. She's decided to do her sitting in bed for the next few days at least, postponing her first wheelchair sit for now.

In reality, without my realizing it, we've embarked on a new phase of life. Skip really shouldn't spend hours and hours at a time sitting in her wheelchair, even when taking advantage of its tilt and recline functions to change the pressure points. (See below for photo of her chair's capabilities, taken when she got it about 3 years ago.) We'll have to see how that changes things for us going forward. Here's hoping we still get those trips to Fenway and further afield, like Las Vegas and Washington, DC.

Bottom line, though, is that Skip has no pressure sore right now for the first time in a very long time. That is a most wonderful thing and not to be downplayed at all. Woo hoo!