A few weeks ago, Donna had a panniculectomy. As the old time greasers know, Donna used to be a few pounds heavier than she is now, on the order of 150. The excess skin that results in certain places can be more than just an annoyance after weight loss, and a "panni" is the surgery used to remove the "roll" that hangs from the belt-line.

Donna was doing fine for the first week, but it's a massive incision, 42 inches around the middle and another 18 inches vertical. And the short story is, it got infected. She's been understandably shy about the whole business, but she had me take a look at it on Tuesday evening. We were heading for the ER 20 minutes later. I have pictures of it at that stage, but they are too graphic (read, disgusting) to post. But you can imagine an infection where the vertical meets the horizontal incision.

The folks in the ER got her started on another round of antibiotics and the surgeon saw her on Thursday morning. She was in the hospital on Friday scheduled for surgery near the end of the day.

The OR was so badly backed up that at 5 o'clock the director of something-or-other came to say that since the OR couldn't give the doc a start time he wanted to wait until Saturday morning at 8 to operate. Turns out it was a good call on his part since we found out the next morning that the OR didn't shut down until 2 a.m. Can you imagine how tired he would have been by midnight?

The doc stopped by on his way home on Friday and I had nowhere to go, so I spent the night in a chair in Donna's room. The surgery went well and I will post below a pic of the result. It's not disgusting, but for all you non-medical types, it is high-tech. The tube is connected to a small suction pump. It's called vac therapy and works by applying negative pressure to suction out fluid, debris and any other nastys while pulling the incision together. Instead of six months recovery, the wound is closed in six weeks.

She's still in the hospital, probably until Tuesday. A nurse changes the sponge in the wound and they want the first change to be done in the hospital. That will happen tomorrow and she should be home by sometime Tuesday.

I'll be able to catch a ride to the hospital tomorrow to visit so I'll be up before my usual 7am. Slept straight through for almost 9 hours last night after sleeping the nigh before in the chair. I'm not as tired tonight as I was last night, but I'm certainly ready to snooze. I've managed to read a few blogs and I have some video of the backroads to post when I have more time, but for now, I covered what's important.

Enjoy the fall-like weather if you're having what we're having. Hasn't rained in days and temps are heading for 50 for the next few. And now, Here's the pic of the vac assisted therapy.



Pretty damn cool!