Yet Another Follow-up

Yesterday was my follow-up with Dr. McCann, my thoracic surgeon. Except we didn't actually see him, but one of his partners, Dr. Loveless. I'm honestly not sure if I remember him, but he said he came to see me that first day after the surgery. (He was also in the surgery, but I obviously wouldn't remember him from that.)

Kyle took me to the outpatient clinic the day before so I could have blood drawn and a chest x-ray taken. They only had to stick me twice, so that was good. Everything went smoothly, but I started to get nervous that I could be informed the infection was back, an idea I find truly terrifying.

I needn't have worried; Dr. Loveless said everything's great. My chest x-ray looks good, and my white count is normal. Huzzay! I'm not dying anymore! Or again! He also took a look at my various incisions and said they all appear to be healing well.

Lessee, what else...oh! We were discussing how the thoracotomy incision still hurts a lot, but that's just life. Apparently, what they did was cut the muscle away from one of my ribs (ouch!) and then took a chunk out of the rib so it would spread further apart (more ouch!). So I guess the level of pain I'm still experiencing isn't really all that surprising.

I had to ask him about staples. When we were going through my itemized hospital bill, there were several things about staples (it was good reading—8 pages, front and back!). Dr. Loveless was confused for a minute, and he said they didn't use any. Then he remembered: Dr. Gibb put lots of staples in. In my neck. Which makes me feel very Frankensteinien. (Those things don't come back out! I'll have them forever. They won't set off security alarms or anything, but still. Weird. Turns out I both lost stuff and gained stuff during that surgery!) Also, I'm to keep my neck scars, especially, out of the sun for the next year or so. He said that if they burn, they'll turn out much worse. I really don't see this being a huge problem, though, vampire that I am.

Oh, and I got another round of "I'm not sure you understand how sick you were. This was...big. Very serious." Really, it just never gets old to hear about how close I came to death. ;)

Good news: I'm done with them! No more follow-ups. I find it a bit odd that I have to see Dr. Gibb again in three months, when the impression I've gotten is that the thoracic surgery was way more involved than the neck ones. But what do I know? In any case, I'm done with thoracic surgeons! (He was very nice, though, and stressed that if I had any questions at all, or if the incisions started to look not so good, or anything, I can call. Which is good.)