Keep Moving Forward

It's been about a month since my last blog post. In that post, I detailed my experience from Operation #5, my massive open wound, my psychological and physical struggles in the hospital. Today, I am still in the middle of my recovery. There are good days and bad days but I always keep in mind what John McEnroe said in his book, "You need to keep moving forward" whether its on the tennis court or in life.  I always keep repeating in my mind, "Keep Moving Forward".

At the end of November, the Wound Doctor from Florida Hospital approved me getting a "wound vac". This device would be connected to my abdomen (carried in a male pocket book) and it's purpose is to speed up the drainage from your wound so healthy tissue can form at a faster pace. This device was mostly a miracle machine, but also a curse. With this device, my wound shrunk by 75% over a three week period! The staff that works at the wound care section of the hospital had never seen anything like it. The bad, my skin took a beating. The itching and rashes, which lead to skin fungus was not pleasant. What was worse was the sloppy nurse in the wound care section of the hospital who caused my skin to blister because she didn't know how to properly put the film on! Of course, I had the comical situations of forgetting that I was attached to the device, for example, when I went to the bathroom in the middle of night and the device would go flying off of my night stand.

As my wound is in the process of healing, so is my skin, nerves, muscle, and tissues up and down my abdomen Over the last week, this has caused extreme pain up and down my abdomen, which radiates to my back. When I visited my surgeon, Dr. Mahan, he reminds me that as bad as this recovery has been for me, the alternative would have been at least 15 times worse. He went on to explain that if I did not have the operation when I did, my intestines would have failed  or burst and the infection would have spread in my body, and I would most likely be fighting for my life.

The bottom line is that I do have a longer road to recovery than I would like, and there will most likely be set backs, but I must always remember, "keep moving forward"!