Five days after leaving, I had to go back to Montreal for my post-op appointment with the surgeon and transplant nurse. Dad came to pick me up, and the ride there was significantly easier than the ride home had been. Bumps were bad but not nearly as bad as they had been that first day out of the hospital. I had to fast, so as soon as I had my blood taken I had a snack, and we went upstairs to see Dr. Malaise and Julie. Julie asked me all kinds of questions about how I was feeling, how much I was pooping, what level my pain was at, was I walking and how much, how much pain medication was I taking, etc., etc. She weighed me as well. When I went into the hospital I was at around 126, and that day I weighed 117. She also told me my kidney recipient was doing very well, and her new kidney was functioning at almost 100% already!
Then I had my visit with Dr. Malaise. He had me lay down so he could inspect my wounds. He tapped around on my stomach, and I made sure to ask him if my blister was ever going to go away. He said the nurse probably shouldn’t have put that plastic bandage on it because it wasn’t able to dry out that way. So he pulled it off … AAAAAHHH! I was not ready for that! I thought for sure it would burst and become very painful (probably because of the internet “research” I had done on post-op blisters). Luckily, it was a tough blister and managed to stay intact. He then started to remove the steri-strips on all of my incisions. I had just barely managed to struggle through the blister tape removal. This was too much for me. I’m a giant wimp, and all I had eaten that day was a granola bar. I just couldn’t handle it. I grabbed the arm of his coat, looked up at him and said sheepishly “Do those really need to come off? Can’t I just leave them on until they fall off or something??” He said my skin had reacted to them so it probably wasn’t a very good idea to leave them on, but if I wanted I could remove them in the shower with some warm water. I promised I would do so when I got home. After our meeting was over I tried to stand up and almost passed out. I had to sit back down until someone got me a glass of water. He said aside from being a little “over-sensitive” I was doing very well.
On the way out Dad got me some orange juice, a granola bar and some almonds. He wheeled me to the parking lot, and this time I was able to walk to the car. We got a sandwich on the way home. That sandwich was the most delicious thing I had tasted in days. I enjoyed every bite!
I was glad to see my Mom’s house. I never wanted to see Montreal again!
That afternoon I removed the steri-strips in the shower. I was fighting off the feeling that I was going to pass out the whole time. Being around water freaked me out, letting the water touch my incisions freaked me out, and looking at them freaked me out even more. This was a triple-whammy. Afterwards I just laid in bed and let my heart rate return to normal. When I got up the courage to look at my stomach again when it was all dried off, it wasn’t all that bad. Definitely not the machete-fight-style scars I thought I was going to see. In fact, it looked a lot better without those strips. My blister still looked pretty gross, but a couple of my smaller incisions were almost completely healed on the outside.
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| Steri-Strips Are Off! |
