Sayonara Seroma

On Saturday 1st December I had my drainage bottle disconnected. Once I recover from this surgery, say another month, I hope to feel normal again. Here are some pictures to help to understand my problem. These first two are not of me, but the situation is very similar. You can see the big lopsided seroma pushing down on my spine when I try to sleep, giving me sciatica in my hips and knees. I'm sure you can imagine the extra pressure it has added to my bladder. When I am walking it pushes up on my left lung. The fluidity of it "off centre" has seriously distorted my balance.

My surgeon says, yes it did look a bit like this when he went in.

I had the surgery privately  as I wanted it before Christmas, and the amounts of fluid being aspirated were increasing - up to 520mls. My surgeon, Peter Stiven does not stand on ceremony. So I text him my measurements of outflow of serum each morning until he says  that it is small enough. This happened on Saturday, so I texted Peter and he came in in his gardening clothes and snipped the stitches which were holding the tube in. I felt like a prisoner with an ankle bracelet who is finally freed!
The serum cam back as "sterile" so that was a positive start.

By the time I was finished this was nearly full.

The red stringy things are like egg white - protein deposits in the serum. They occasionally blocked up the valve.

I had a worrying few days when I thought he had put me back together without a tummy button, but as the swelling went down it gradually appeared - I dont know why I worried about this!!!

The stitches have now dissolved and I have a new shooting star to add to my constellation of scars.

Now we are on seroma watch. The original seroma was evident a week after my hernia operation. So far so good..