Disclaimer: This post contains medical disgust. For all three of you who like such things, feel free to keep reading. The rest of you: be warned and run far, far away.
Disclaimer 2: There are always a few of you who say you felt guilty laughing at my expense. If I wasn’t okay with you laughing at me, I wouldn’t write it. I hereby excuse you to laugh guilt-free at all of my blogged-misfortunes here forth.
I am living the dream.
Or at least the Junior High Boy’s dream.
In the past three weeks, I have completely grossed out a doctor, a dentist, and countless nurses with my medical conditions.
I mean really, how often is it that you get to hear a doctor say, “Oh, THAT is really gross!” before they have a chance to stop themselves?
It all started three weeks ago, when I was still in the hospital, and began to have complications after Noah’s birth.
(I know – I said I wasn’t going to blog about them, but that’s just because I didn’t want the horrific disgustingness to take away from Noah’s birth story. But you couldn’t expect me to pass up an opportunity to blog about something disgusting all together, could you??)
It was Tuesday afternoon, and Chris had to leave the hospital for a bit, so my lucky friend Amanda (Happy Birthday, by the way!!) was “babysitting” me.
I’d started having horrible abdominal pain earlier that day, but assumed it was related to them CUTTING ME OPEN two days ago, so didn’t think too much about it.
Until I stood up. And all of a sudden, a gushing waterfall of fluids poured out of my incision. And kept pouring. And kept pouring.
I screamed for Amanda to call the nurses.
The pouring continued.
After what felt like long enough for all of my internal fluid to pour out, a nurse came in, and before she looked, said, “It’s normal to have a little bit of leakage from your incision.”
Then she looked…
“OH. That’s really disgusting. I’ll call your doctor.”
More pouring…
A bit later, my doctor comes in, takes a look, wrinkles his nose, and then gets up and starts looking around the room.
“What are you looking for?”
“Gloves!!!”
At this point, I remember apologizing profusely for my absolutely stunning level of grossness.
Turns out, it was a Seroma – a pocket of fluid (or in my case, a water tower of fluid) that can develop behind an incision.
He drained and drained and drained it some more, and then told me that if it didn’t drain out, he’d have to re-open the incision and <shudder> pack it, after which I would have to <gag> re-pack it for several days at home.
Thank goodness it healed. There are few things in life that make me sick, but wound packing is one of them.
So. Three weeks later.
As I mentioned, I’ve had this wonderful tooth fun, which has turned into a party for my whole face. The right half of my face got so swollen that it was actually drooping from the weight, making me look rather like this guy:
And so, after enduring 72 hours of saggy-cheeked-intense-toothache-fun, I finally was able to brave the icy roads (or my chauffer, my Father, was), and get to an Endodontist yesterday.
I sat down in his chair, completely prepared (and actually anticipating) him going drill-crazy in my mouth.
He pulled out his mirror and took a look around.
“OH WOW. It’s REALLY gnarly back in there!!!”
“I know – I haven’t been able to brush my teeth all weekend.”
“No – I mean it’s disgusting!! You have two HUGE pus pockets on your gums, and I can actually SEE the green pus through your SKIN!!”
And then he went on to explain to me that my infection was so intense that there was no way that he could redo my root canal, because the blah-blah-dentist-speak alkaline of the infection would blah-blah interfere with the novocaine…
“So basically it’d hurt like heck?”
“Yes.”
“But I assure you: it already is!!”
“It’d hurt worse. BUT I am going to need to cut open those pus pockets today and drain them.”
Lovely.
“But don’t worry! We’ll pack your mouth with gauze – because green pus doesn’t taste so good.”
Yum.
“And it’s the infection that’s hurting you, so this should alleviate your pain.”
Promise?
“Yes. You’ll just need to keep pushing on your pus pockets all day and changing out your gauze packing every half hour to help all of it to come out.”
Excellent.
“And then in a week, when all of the infection is gone, we’ll redo the root canal.”
Can’t wait!
And so, my day yesterday was filled with green-pus-pushing. Although I still look like half a Basset Hound, I am definitely feeling better….besides the taste of the green pus. He wasn’t lying about that.
Living the dream, alright.
I just died a little bit inside. Oh me.
I hope you feel better soon! Yikes!
Okay, medical things don’t gross me out – usually, but wow, that’s bad. I hope it clears up quickly!
Wow. That IS gross! I think I’ll just sit here and be grateful that I have a sinus infection and pink eye (which is gross enough as it is!)
Nothing to laugh at there, friend. So sorry! That is disgusting. The green pus pockets sounds particularly “eeew”, what with being in your mouth and all. I hope that the pain is GREATLY alleviated and that you can get that root canal redone, pronto. I’m so, so sorry! PLEASE let me know if there is anything that I can do for you.
Wow, that’s pretty gross. And I’m glad I’m only dealing with impacted wisdom teeth that I’ll have to actually get pulled someday soon. You’re such a trooper!
Terrible! I’ve developed quite the immunity for disgusting medical stories, so this didn’t faze me. However, it DID make me feel sorry for you! Hope you feel perfect again soon!
Wow, I just gagged a little bit. Not over the water part…that is kind of interesting (although I’m sure it was very freaky to experience it!) but the tooth pus part was definitely a new level of gross. Yuck. So sorry you are having to go through this! I hope all your puss drains soon so you can get it fixed and get back to normal! (whatever that looks like with a newborn and toddler) :)
My incision opened after 7 days!!! On its on and tons of green goop came out-When I rushed to the doctor, bc that is what you do when your fresh wound opens up. She stuck a band-aid on it and said “it should feel better now!!”
My incision had to be packed. I didn’t think my husband would survive that. It wasn’t the packing part that was bad but it was the pulling-out-the-puss-filled-gauze that was bad. He said it made noise. So no kidding, when he pulled it out he made me sing the Star Spangled Banner at the top of my lungs so he didn’t have to hear it. Hard to believe my singing is better than the sound that puss-filled gauze makes but it is.
Thank you for making me laugh.
And no thank you for making me laugh – it really hurt.
I think I would die if I had to pack something in my mouth. I had a biopsy once and was supposed to pack the area. Oh my goodness, I could not handle having something inside of me like that and I did not follow the doctor’s instructions. Now I’ve got a big ole ugly scar.
So, follow instructions… :)
I sooo hope you start feeling better soon Rachel.
For the record, the mouth packing is (thankfully) just inside my mouth – not inside the actual puss pocket. Phew!
Rachel, seriously – I don’t know what to say… puss pockets in your mouth???
Yick. I am now living in terror of failing root canals – I didn’t know that could happen until your drama began.
Wow I feel so bad for you, although at least you can find the humor in it now. Maybe not so much then.
I have shoe salemans tell me I have mutant feet but I can’t remember ever grossing out the medical staff anywhere. Although I don’t really remember much from my gallbladder surgery since I was in so much pain and had a bad infection from it.
I will be praying that your mouth/tooth drama is over soon and you can go back to really living the dream with your adorable family.
I bet he didn’t sell many shoes with a shoeside manner like THAT!!!
Oh man. I feel like I should write about hemorrhoids in post-partum-grossness solidarity!!
Poor you! I feel very sympathetic.
To the girl who is delaying dealing with her impacted wisdom teeth: BAD idea. I let mine get to the point where I couldn’t cope or sleep without pain meds and my perfectly straight teeth got moved around and are now crooked. This led to all kinds of other problems including my recent root canal. Not to mention that the more seriously impacted, the harder they are to remove and the more likely they are to be tangled in your nerves. Which makes nerve damage more likely (I was lucky to only lose sensation in half my tongue for six months)
I’ve learned the hard way that procrastinating about dental issues is never a good idea!
Rachel, I hope you are being properly pampered!
Do you get a special medal or something for all this? You should.
I have to admit I was curious what your complications were after you had the C-section. So glad that both situations are just gross and not dangerous to your health. Hope this is your last encounter with slime!
Oh no! I’m so sorry! It is a testament to your character that you are able to maintain a wonderful sense of humor throughout this!
Owch! I’m impressed with myself that I managed to eat porridge for breakfast through that post! Poor you, though, sounds absolutely horrid. Hope you get well very soon! :)
That wasn’t THAT disgusting….just though I’d tell you that…
okay, I just realized that I used the word “that” way too many times…oops!
i’ve never actually vomited in my mouth whilst reading a blog. you’ve popped my cherry and i thank you.
Oh my!!! With 3 c-sctions I am so glad I have never experienced anything like that!! At least now I know it can happen, thanks to you :)
And your mouth,,,talk about gross! Hope you feel better soon and you can get the taste of green puss out of your mouth FOREVER!
I think a little bit of my bloggy innocence just died. I was fine with the C-section stuff, but when I got to the green pus, I fear I may never be the same….
Oh… Rachel.. that was all pretty disgusting. I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time right now. The tooth thing is going to give me nightmares. If if makes you feel better, I spent Yesterday morning passed out on my bathroom floor with my face pressed against the toilet – food poisoning? I hope you’re pus free soon!
OH gosh, ha ha, I feel so badly for you, as I’m cracking up at your expense! Hope you start feeling better soon!
Wow Rachel, you had some traumatic days huh? This too shall pass!!! Heres hoping things get better from here.
God should make a rule about oozing pus where you can TASTE it. That’s just wrong.
Well…I can’t say you didn’t warn me at the beginning of this post…
Ouch! yuck! poor thing… hope you’re on the road to recovery now
holy hello!
Seriously? You poor thing!
Okay, maybe painful and gross but 2 coolest gross stories I ever read. Thanks for sharing! :D
Sometimes I hate having a body. I realize I wouldn’t exist without one but sometimes they hurt so bad. So gross, I’m so sorry. Bodily fluids are just gross.
ummmm….as a medical professional, I must say “EWWWWWW!”
Seriously hope you are feeling MUCH better by now.
Trying to catch up!
Yikes, Rachel!
I didn’t get the least bit grossed out by any of this, despite your alluringly detailed descriptions, but I did feel your pain a little. Not really, since I’ve never had a true infection of any kind, but my gums (and abdomen, but maybe that was just the twins) began to ache as I read it.
Poor you. Glad it’s over!