Paying the price

After Saturday's outing to Leamington, I felt unusually tired and was relieved that I could attend the Parish Eucharist and not have to officiate or preach. Clare went off to her study group in Bristol after Sunday lunch. I spent the afternoon stretched out in bed, reading more of the Pablo Poveda novel, then walking up to Llandaff Cathedral, returning along the Taff Trail. I've pushed my average daily walking distance to over six miles now. It's pretty tiring, but it guarantees that I sleep well, even if I'm still having to get up and change an uncomfortable dressing during the night. 

Monday was much the same, with the wound giving me more trouble than I'd expected. So I asked my GP for a brief telephone chat, to discuss how to manage a situation in which I'm having more pain and discomfort than I have done for several weeks. It's not debilitatingly bad, but it seems that as the outer layers of tissue heal, and nerve endings re-grow and connect, skin can become ultra-sensitive to whatever the wound exudes. 

It seems the secret is to clean the wound to use a fresh absorbent dressing more often that I have been used to this past few months and this helps the incision dry out. The wound isn't closing as it should, because it over-produces tissue in response to being kept open with a suture for an unusually long time, as part of the fistula treatment process - hypergranulation it's called. This can reduce naturally once the wound finally dries out. I'm nearly there, but not quite. 

I'm not sure what good it's doing to wait so long between operations. I'm pretty sure that internal healing has been progressing over the past six weeks, and that it would have been beneficial to be suture free to permit the natural healing to work. But, there's an NHS queue, and the surgeon's work is not well supported by admin that can maintain effective relevant communication between doctor and patient.

The physical stress of Saturday's train journey has certainly had an impact on the condition of the wound. It's been something of a set-back. Today has also been miserable, and it was an effort to get out and walk, albeit worthwhile. Funny how I can keep walking a good distance every day and generally experience steady improvement, but if I have to sit for too long in a less than ideal position, it always seems to make matters worse. I'll need to go carefully for the next few days.