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Hernia repair surgery is a pretty minor “major” operation. Mine went fine, and recovery started off on the right foot until my incision came apart days before my staples were to be removed. At first, I was left with an open wound the size of a half dollar. Now it’s the size of a tennis ball, but that’s a good thing! Let me explain.

Warning: This is my fourth time chronicling this adventure. I never set out to shock people with how gross I can be and haven’t shared photos of my incision, but I’ve made an effort to tame my descriptions in this post along with the last update. If you’d rather come back tomorrow, I’ve got another Village Pantry post primed and ready to go, followed by my usual slate of schoolhouse and courthouse posts.

If you’re new here, let me provide a quick background to my stupid situation: last summer, I let a friend keep her pet tortoise here while she remodeled her house. If you find yourself in a similar situation, don’t try to move Sheldon’s enormous terrarium up the stairs by yourself! I got a hernia and waited too long to get it looked at. I was in a tremendous amount of pain during my recent trip to the property, so I had surgery to fix it and staple my belly button up about a month ago.

I struggled with bleeding a lot after the procedure. The surgeon explained he’d removed a lot of stuff and that there would be a void beneath my belly button that needed to heal from the inside out. Nevertheless, the bleeding persisted and, a week after the operation, the wound reopened above my belly button. Last I checked in, my doctor, surgeon, mom, and I all believed I’d developed an infection. I stayed home from work while some antibiotics ran their course, but the symptoms didn’t improve.

My surgeon eventually determined that I might have a perforated bowel, so I was admitted back to the hospital to undergo some tests. They didn’t reveal anything unusual, so I was referred to a wound clinic. I had my first appointment on Friday. I finally think my recovery is moving forward! A new doctor has a plan for my healing, and a new nurse made sure it could be put into action.

My nurse made an alarming discovery as she started cleaning out the wound. It turns out that the area under my old belly button was a void that needed to heal, but it wasn’t the void. That void- the size of a tennis ball if you squeezed it a little, was revealed after the doctor performed an impromptu surgery that opened a portion of my incision back up. Necrotic tissue had been leaking from the big void to the small one, which trickled out of me into my dressing and tricked us all into thinking it had become infected.

I don’t think I started truly healing until that appointment! The doctor explained the process of at-home care after the void was opened and cleared, and I fully expected to clean and pack the wound myself. Truth be told, though, I didn’t have a grasp on how big the new void was. That’s where Dr. Mom came in again: once it became apparent that it was too big for me to address on my own, she committed to the unenviable task. Today is the fifth day she’s done it, and Mom has truly gone above and beyond for me.

The new wound is about two and a half inches deep. It’s alarming to see, and I wouldn’t have blamed her if Mom gave up halfway through the first night! She’s stronger than I am, though, and we’ve gotten the routine down from about twenty minutes to six or seven. Mom taught my stepdad, Jerry, how to do it in her absence, and truly earned her stethoscope over the past month. I even bought her one, as a joke.

I’m extraordinarily grateful for her help, and if it sounds spoiled to rely on the care of my mom at thirty-two, I don’t know what to tell you. She’s been a godsend, and the new care routine has several steps: Mom removes the dressing and gauze, gently cleans the wound with saline, re-packs it with a special type of debriding gauze soaked in Dakin’s solution, and patches it back up with dressing and tape. I help by trying not to cringe at the weird pressure I feel in my abdomen. It doesn’t hurt -it’s actually sort of ticklish- but it’s toe-curling and extremely uncomfortable. We’re working with a place that things shouldn’t be placed in!

The wound care team has me locked into a 16-week schedule that combines the at-home stuff my mom and I are doing with weekly appointments in the office to chart my progress and remove old tissue. It’s a daunting timeframe, but I can go to appointments while I’m on lunch since the clinic is a minute’s drive from my office.

I’m excited to return to work on Wednesday. I’ve felt directionless and discouraged since my operation, but for once in this horrible month, I think everything is finally on the upswing. It actually seems like new tissue is already beginning to grow: we’re already using less new gauze to pack the wound, and the old stuff is coming out cleaner and clearer. I foresee some mechanical debridement on Friday to remove more necrotic tissue, but I’m confident that I’ll get this gaping hole to heal with the unmeasurable help of my wound care team and Dr. Mom.

I’m really looking forward to it.