Post-Surgery: Day 9

On our second visit to the doctor two days later, she was able to examine the scab now that the dried blood was gone, and she removed the stitches.   She was completely flummoxed – a scab is not what is supposed to be there.  It is supposed to be healthy skin with a scar from the stitches around the edges. I wasn’t a smoker, I have normal blood pressure, I was young and in good health – she never sees this kind of outcome in a patient like me. 

She said it presented as some sort of infection, and since there was yellow involved, it could be MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant staph bacteria.  This doubled the bad news about the failed flap, because now we had to figure out what was going on with that. The antibiotic that I had been on for 10 days (Keflex) was not effective against MRSA.  She took a swab to have it cultured, but warned that since I had been on antibiotics for 10 days, the results might be compromised.  Her theory is that I harbored MRSA in my nose, and that it contaminated the wound site since it was so close to the edge of my nose.

She told me to continue with the warm showers, wet-to-dry bandages, and ointment (including putting the ointment in my nostril), and put me on a MRSA-effective antibiotic called Septra.  She would see me back in 4 days, on Monday, and hope that there is some improvement in the wound.

She also gave me detailed instructions about how to limit the spread of MRSA (if indeed it is that) to my family and friends.  So everything in our house was washed (by my wonderful mother), the surfaces disinfected, and we redoubled our hand washing efforts (which were already pretty strong because I was so worried about getting another cold post-surgery that would interfere with the healing).

What a mess, right?  Isn’t this how you’d like to look post-surgery too?!  

Blue stitches are still in, but even without the stitches, it is not a pretty sight.  

The inability to wash my face and apply make-up certainly doesn’t help the overall look….