Friday, November 29, 2019

Dermabond is NOT my friend

It really sorta does have something to do with this post.

A couple of weeks ago I had a chemo port placed.  Pretty standard-issue stuff, but the process was still weird.  It's never a good thing to be completely aware that your flesh is being rent asunder and objects placed within your body.  The tugging and pulling - ugh.

As often happens with surgery nowadays, the sutures place under the skin are supposed to 'dissolve' in 7-10 days, to which my body says 'HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!  SO FUNNY!'  Nope - not gonna happen.  My system will chew on those suckers for several weeks before deciding it doesn't like the taste of them atall and does NOT want that ish dissolving anywhere near it, so it spits them out.

That's right.  Stitch spitting is a thing, and not just at county fairs.  It's actually not all that uncommon, so I'm not a total and complete weirdo, but yeah, the process can take MONTHS before the last remnant is evicted.  Do NOT GIS that if you know what's good for you and whatever you last ate.

AND NOT ONLY THAT, but nowadays the surgeons like to close the superficial wound with skin glue, or 'Dermabond.'  Approximate the edges, slather some of that stuff on, and et voila - in a few seconds you have nice tight junctions that should remain stuck in place for at least a week before sloughing off. Just don't get it wet, by God, or  the dermabond might dislodge prematurely and who knows what evil will find its way into your body and render all reasonable medical aid pointless?  It's your funeral, bub, at least you'll be clean for it, you water wastrel.

Word to the wise: if you've ever experienced some sensitivity to medical tape like is used on wound dressings, beware the Dermabond.  BEWARE, I say.  Because if you've had a reaction to other  adhesives, you have a very high likelihood of reacting badly to Dermabond.  Oh, the old-school medical journals thought atopic reactions were rare, but do a touch more digging and examples GALORE begin to surface, must like the horrible itchy blistery rash will if you are exposed to the Dermabond.

I could not figure out why the incision sites were so damned itchy, and painful, and annoying.  Just to accidentally touch them, even under the occlusive dressing, was horrible.  I wanted to SCRATCH them, but even a light finger-press on the sites made me want to punch a Viking.  Relentless itching, and flashing pain.  I was loath to remove the dressing because 1) do NOT get the sites wet, do you want to kill yourself? and 2) I was afraid the skin might come along with the surgical tape, much like what happened after getting my c-section dressing removed. 

As luck would have it, jut about a week after the placement I had another doc appointment, and the head nurse wanted to take a look at the site, so removed the dressing.  She SAID it looked like it was healing well, so of course I took her word for it.

Until I got home.

Y'all.

It looked like I had a second-degree burn in the shape of what I can only imagine was the brush that applied the glue.  The skin was discolored a deep brown and was DRY, wrinkled, and very not-right-looking.  And was still itchy.  Like a medically-induced poison ivy rash, really.  Very sexy.

(Also do not GIS 'dermabond reaction.')

Remember that thing I was told about the Dermabond coming off on its own in a week or so?  LIES.  It was 13 days before that shit started to roll off my chest, and as my older son pointed it, 'that was probably also the top layer of your skin Mom.'  There's a very good chance he's right about that. 

But what (generally) sweet relief.  I've been able to sleep in a bed for a few nights now (previously it felt like the site was going to open up if I laid down, such was the tugging and pulling on the wound site), and I can turn my head enough to see traffic without having to swivel my whole torso.  Glorious.

Bottom line is this: If anyone ever comes at me, scalpel in hand, in the future and swears that they're closing with Dermabond and it doesn't cause skin reactions, I'm going to pretend they're a Viking.  And punch them good and hard.

Tiff out.

1 comment:

Tony Gasbarro said...

"Dermabond." It sounds like the next lead in the 007 series.