Farting Rules!

16 January 2019 on to end of the month

Continued from previous post.

Since they really couldn't decide just how much damage I had done to my plumbing, they kept inspecting it. I was starting to feel like additional damage was being done. Doctors also kept coming back with new questions, I'm assuming from the head of the unit, slowly circling all sides of the potential issues. Finally one set of questions seemed to settle the matter.

One of the doctors came in, and after another quick look and some perfunctory questions about how I was feeling, asked me if I had farted. I confessed to having participated in the practice. Recently? Yes, such as after one of their digital inspections (and I'm not talking about electronics). Uncontrollably? The significance of the question, and the consequences of my answer were hitting me as I answered. No, not uncontrollably.

Well, the end result was, if I still had a gas proof seal, especially with the considerable healing that had yet to happen, I was probably going to come out of this with full functionality. A huge relief, given some of the worst case scenarios we had been going through, which would have been literally life-changing.

Once everyone became comfortable with this conclusion over then next hour or so, this now became primarily an issue of dealing with a loss of skin over a significant area, in a particularly bad area for infections. They decided the closest similar injury was a burn victim, so they covered all the unskinned area with this collagen/silver sheet material that was supposed to encourage healing while protecting the surface and strongly discouraging infection while that was still happening.

The performance of these collagen sheets was as impressive as the price. Before the samples they gave me ran out I ordered more on Amazon. If you need these sheets, then you're really in no position to haggle on the price, and I think they know that. I was only ordering in square inches, while a significant burn victim has to be using square feet, every day.

Once we got back to the boat I still had weeks of recovery to go. I was in charge of showering and cleaning up the area at least once a day, but it fell to my darling wife Heather to place the new sheet over the unskinned area, then bandages and then tape to hold it all in place. Most importantly, she reported on whether the unskinned area was smaller than the day before, and its general appearance. As the fee for her services she took delight in pulling the previous day's tape off, or at least my reaction to it. Kelly Clarkson! It was the price to be paid.

The skin slowly grew in from the edges, and somehow in the middle it just recreated itself, although that took longer. Apparently the scarring isn't pretty, but the one advantage of the location is (very) few will ever see it. After a week or so I panicked when there was a slightly larger blood spot on the bandage, so I tried again to make a follow up appointment, but never heard back from Mayo. But a few days later I received a reminder that I had an appointment in a couple days.

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