Pictures of incision and various odds and ends

Here a few photos of things I have been talking about since my surgery.

This is a photo of my incision on the same day I had the surgery, so the bandages are still on.

This photo is on Friday, the day my bandages came off. The tape strips are what is called steristrips and are used to help glue the incision together while it heals. They used the same incision as they did for my decompression, but it goes down a little further onto my neck than the other scar did. At least that is what it look like right now. We will see more after the steristrips come off and things start to heal a little bit more.

This is a picture of me in my Miami J neck collar. It isn't the most common neck brace, but it is the one my surgeon likes the most. I think it is pretty comfortable and have worn it a lot while I have been in NY. It helps a lot on planes, cars, and boats.  You can kind of see it under my scarf. The dark blue parts are the padding and the white/gray parts are the hard plastic to hole my head in place. I will try to find/take a better photo of the brace. P.S. this picture was taken at The Statue of Liberty with my fiance Joseph!!!

This last picture is of my port. The blue extension on the end is normally clear. It is the same thing, my home health care company just uses a different brand. The green thing on the end is the little caps I was talking about that keep the port sterile. They are called curos and I am hoping to get them for at home. I don't really like the way that this is dressed, but when I get home my home nurse will change it. The bandage is just a little bunched up and doesn't look/feel as comfortable as normal. The writing on the right side of the port says what size needle is in it: they have both a gage which is how wide the hole in the needle is (the bigger the number smaller the hole in the needle) and how long the needle is. I have a 19 gage needle in, which is fairly large because they wanted it for the medications for the hospital. For comparison I usually use a 22 gage or rarely a 20 gage needle. The needle is 1 inch long, which is a little longer than I normally use but not uncomfortable. I normally use a 3/4 inch needle, but then they can not use what is called a microbe disk. it is the little white disk that you can kind of see underneath the bandage that goes right around the needle. I don't normally use these because a 3/4 inch needle is too short to use one with, but we might switch over to a 1 inch needle for this reason.

 

Well that was a lot of updates for the last couple of days! I will update again after I start recovering and talk to a couple of my doctors. I am hoping you are all well!