Wearing JP Drainage Tubes is Getting Old

 

Let me go on record today as being officially tired of wearing JP drainage tubes. (JP is shorthand for Jackson-Pratt.)

 

It has been three weeks and two days since my panniculectomy surgery and my JP tubes are still draining excess fluids away from the area.

 

Which is a  good thing!

 

But I expected excess drainage to last a week or two (based on earlier surgeries), not three weeks, and certainly not longer than four weeks!!!

 

It isn’t that they’re uncomfortable (they aren’t), but they’re putting a crimp in my lifestyle.

 

I’m supposed to be wearing a compression girdle to keep my mons pubis area compressed, but when I do, the tubes hurt me where they enter my flesh, and getting the girdle off, or unsnapped, to use the bathroom is a pain in the butt.  I have to be very careful not to pull the sutures out again that are holding the tubes in place. So most of the time I just strap on a surgical binder and leave it at that.  (I can, and do, place it to compress the problem area some, but the compression isn’t as robust as with the girdle.)

 

My right side is draining least.  That tube, I hope, will be able to come out on Monday or Tuesday.  (It has to drain less than 30 ccs over a 24-hour period, two days running, before I can remove it.)

 

I don’t know how much longer the left one will need to stay in. It’s putting out too much every 24 hours to be able to even guess how soon it can come out.

 

Technically, I could start bike riding again on Wednesday of next week, BUT not with tubes still in me. Those have to be out and the holes healed up before I take any bike rides.

 

I’m supposed to wear a binder and/or compression girdle for at least two weeks after the tubes come out, too, so biking very far in those probably won’t be much fun.

 

Lisa says we can ride around Waughop Lake the first few times, to see how I fare.  Waughop is probably about a half a mile around, and ends up where we start, so if it’s too much, we can stop and quit.  I very much doubt it will be too much, and it’s nearly flat all the way around, so it shouldn’t pose a problem for me.

 

Enough bellyaching!

 

In Other News…

 

The rats are doing fine. I’ve ordered some special rat litter to cut down on the ratty smell they leave behind after peeing and pooping. I have a candle burning atop their cage in the meantime. That helps a lot.

 

One of my mama goats (Jazzy) apparently got stung by a bee underneath her jaw yesterday.  I went out to check on the goats yesterday afternoon and all came running except for her.  She stayed atop the den box in the covered shed, so I went in to see why she was being so quiet, still and recalcitrant even when I called to her, and found a handful of swelling beneath her lower jaw.

 

So, of course, I commiserated with her, made sure she was able to breathe okay, and checked on her every couple hours.

 

The second time I went out to check on her, she had moved back with the herd and was interested in and eager to eat grain again, so I knew she was feeling better.

 

This morning the swelling is visibly smaller and she’s acting normal again.

 

I wonder what kind of insect it was that got her. Based on the size of the welt, I wonder if it wasn’t one of those so-called Asian murder hornets.  But of course I didn’t see it, and haven’t seen any wasps or hornets out in their pasture or shed, either.  So, I’m just guessing…

 

I’ve been napping a lot.  Post-surgery healing takes a lot out of a body, even when the recovery is easy. My body is doing things to help bring me back to par, and it’s taking a slight toll.  Sleeping is the remedy. I’m doing whatever my body tells me to do right now.  I’m not pushing it.

 

Our A/C threatened to quit on us during the hottest days (it kept shutting off), so we had a repairman come check it out yesterday.  It was a quart low on Freon (which is super expensive) and he checked for other issues, too.  I don’t think he found any. Jackie didn’t tell me, if he did. The bill was $375.00. (Over $100 of that was for the Freon.) Jackie and I will split the cost of repairs.  It’s working fine again.

 

What else?  I guess that’s about all the news that’s fit to print for this time.

 

Hope you have a Happy (and quiet) 4th!