I didn't mean to sound like a bully. I DON'T want to punch anyone in the face. At least now that Kourtni has a clean bill of health. It's funny the emotions that you go through when a loved one is faced with a serious illness. My emotions were frustration, frustration, and more frustration, oh, and punching someone sounded nice too. (I kid!)
After Kourtni's release from the hospital in December, she didn't heal. The drains that were put in to take away all the gunk from inside, did their job, but made her skin weak and it started to leak where the drain sites had been. She leaked and leaked and leaked out of those sites. We went through gauze and tape like we had stock in Johnson and Johnson. We took her to the doctor again and they tried various modalities to decrease the leaking. Finally it was determined that she would need to have another surgery to cut out the tissues that were not healing in her abdomen and place her on a wound vacuum to encourage healing of the area.
She was a trooper.
Another surgery and another thing to have to stick to her ravaged belly. The wound vacuum was her constant companion. It was basically a pump that had plastic tubing attached to it and it would "suck" out any of the blood, infection, or general gunk that you get after surgery out of her wound. She would carry the vacuum like a purse and the constant hum of this machine would lull anyone around her to sleep. Her wound was the size of a deodorant cap. Yep, a hole in her belly that went through multiple layers of skin and muscle. Thanks to the AWESOME people at the Elk's Rehabilitation Center, Kourtni was on the road to complete recovery. Until she developed a severe reaction to the tape that was holding the wound vacuum to her skin. She had to take a break from the vac and that meant a slow down in healing. When it was determined that she would no longer be able to use the wound vac because of her extreme sensitivity and reaction, we were advised that she would need to have another surgery to close up the wound.
Another surgery.
This one would be quick, easy, and done on the same day. Which it was. Kourtni was through the worst of her ordeal and, although she woke up terrified that she had another drain attached to her, this final surgery did the trick.
Today Kourtni has a totally clean bill of health. She was able to catch up on all the school work she missed. She went to her senior prom. She was crowned prom queen. She graduated from high school in May. She'll be going to BYU in a couple of weeks, and she and I have matching lower belly scars, but mine are from 4 babies and hers is from a volleyball sized abscess resulting from an emergency appendectomy on 12/12/12.
