Slight setback

After that heroic homecoming story, I now have to eat a little crow.  I'm back in the hospital.  Most of you will not want to read this entry so I'll jump to the end and say that I'm fine and still healing but I'll be in Lacks for a day or two before I can return home..  Send emails... no calls please.

I noticed that I was coughing more and more.  It seemed to be a little worse when I talked; as if the weird vibration of my whacked-out vocal chords tickled my cough reflex.  So I was practicing being still all yesterday morning, catching up on some correspondence, etc.

At 2:00, the home visit nursed stopped by to check in and see how I was doing.  I explained that I felt really great in all ways except that this cough seems to be getting worse.  It was very irritating.  I demonstrated the cough technique I was shown where you grab a pillow to your gut to use as a "splint" to ease the pressure on the lower incisions.  I coughed, reaching a little deeper to get that "progressive feeling" where stuff might actually come up.  As it turns out, I should have been splinting the neck wound.  No one had mentioned that before!  To quote my brother-in-law, Matt, who sent a would-be prophetic email an hour later, "The thought of you coughing with all that reconstruction gives me the heebie jeebies."  (Matt, you should stop reading here, for sure.)

As I coughed, I had a weird bulge sensation in my neck.  I told the home nurse "I've never felt that before!"  It didn't hurt at all but when I reached up to touch my neck, I noticed immediately that it was swollen.  I asked the nurse If I looked different.  She couldn't tell.  Just then, Mary walked in and took one look at me and said "What's wrong?"  She came over and felt my neck and confirmed that it was definitely swollen.  And while she was feeling around my neck, I realized that the left side of my neck was numb.  It was surely not a good thing!  But a weird side-effect of that numbness was that it took away the cough sensation.  My breathing was easier and besides the fact that I could not turn my head very far in any direction, I felt a little better.

We reached Dr. McCahill's office by phone right away and after a little consultation, I was advised to meet him at the emergency room.  The procedure did not take to long and used local anesthesia.  He opened a slit at the bottom of the neck incision and massaged gasses and fluids out through the hole he created. He discovered a suture from the original esophagectomy had developed a leak.

I'm still a little unclear about where all these fluids come from and what is exactly going on. But it seems the strategy is to let the gash drain for a while and eventually the ruptures will heal on their own without additional surgery.  I spent an uncomfortable night with medical sponges taped to my chest around the gash.  One of my favorite nurses came in periodically to change the sponges, which would be soaked through with stinky fluids.  I did not sleep much at all.  In the morning, an ostomy bag was adhered to the gash and now those fluids go into a baby-sized plastic bag instead of sponges against my skin.  I am much more comfortable.  I'll go back home this afternoon or tomorrow morning, depending on how long they want to observe me.

Still Life: Blogger with ostomy bag on neck

Stand by for a second triumphant, but more modest homecoming.