Over the last week I’ve been amazed at how quickly my wounds are healing. For so long the progress has been slow. Last Thursday I was diagnosed with a skin infection  and treated with a broad-spectrum antibiotic. This week, my breast wound has all but closed (it wasn’t really healing before) and my stomach wound has also significantly improved (http://dttocs.smugmug.com/photos/i-zC8kTDT/0/M/i-zC8kTDT-M.gif).

I’m a little annoyed that the infection wasn’t caught earlier. I reported that my dressing changes were blue (http://dttocs.smugmug.com/photos/i-JxKRZJz/0/M/i-JxKRZJz-M.jpg), which I now know is a sign of infection – and yet, my reports were ignored. It wasn’t until the infection was much worse and very obvious that anything was done about it. Now part of me is annoyed at myself for not advocating more for myself when I knew something was wrong, but I also really did not want to deal with antibiotics. My last experience with them is still having lingering negative effects (joint pain). So I wasn’t exactly eager to be treating the infection!

The other reason that my healing has been so dramatic is that I was finally taught how to do the wet-to-dry dressing changes properly. I did not appreciate that when I changed dressing that I actually wanted to be removing the dead skin, and that a little bleeding was a good thing. I was using the wrong type of gauze – the stuff I used was great for absorbing but not good for debriding. Now that I’ve been shown how to pack the wound properly, and I’m using the right kind of gauze, my dressing changes are encouraging healing.

So now I’m just amazed at how quickly I’m healing. I didn’t realize how slow progress had been until the progress became quick. I don’t really expect that the wound will fully heal before my surgery in just over two weeks, but I’m happy to report that there is healing progress!