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So let’s talk about the wound vac. For those of you who don’t know what a wound vac is, I’ll try not to scare you. For those of you who have experienced one, perhaps you’ll actually find a reason to chuckle.
First of all a Wound Vac is exactly what it sounds like. It is a machine that has the same qualities of your standard house vacuum cleaner (meaning it sucks) and it attached to a wound to help suck it closed.
Imagine, if you will, both sides of your right leg flayed open at the calf muscle, or for you butchers out there, the leg has been butterflied open. That’s right. You have two gaping, crater sized wounds running down the sides of your right leg. Well, what do you expect when both sides had been cut clear clean to the bone. I’m pretty sure both the tibia and fibula were showing for anyone’s viewing pleasure. Provided they were strong of courage and empty of stomach.
Now once these two craters begin to heal—the wounds pretty much close on its own. However, like earlier, complications heaped upon complications. The healing of my leg was no different. One side was given four really big, really gnarly stitches. That side, the inside of my leg, healed pretty decently. The other side, the outer side, did not heal so well. In fact, my dressing had to be changed quite frequently after I was home.
Let’s really examine how the changing of the dressing really went. First the white gauze and bandage had to be removed from my leg. No big deal right? Wrong! The clear, packaging tape that held all the gauze to my leg was liberally applied and just managed to attach itself to every hair follicle that I had growing again on my leg. Take off the bandage, take off the hairs.
Now go back to imagining a crater, the size of, I don’t know, the Grand Canyon, on the outside or the (radial) portion of the right leg. After the dressing is free from the leg, it is time to apply the medicine. To really appreciate this step of the process you’ll need to think a bit medieval. Imagine, a dragon breathing fire into every inch, every pore, every working nerve of your leg. Hell’s flames eating away at your leg the instant the medicine spray makes contact. The blistering heat does not just go away as soon as it hits. No, it lasts so long that when you look down at your leg, you’d expect to see a pile of ash where your leg had been.
This was the feeling when the medicine was being applied. Now since the exposed nerves do not work properly—this fiery heat radiates not just for the 20 or so seconds it takes to apply, but for minutes. That’s right. Hell’s flames not consuming my leg, but still burning. I’m sure that sound very sacrilegious, but I really don’t have any other words in which to describe the daily torment of wound dressing.
After two weeks of this treatment, the complication that I mentioned earlier, set in. As if enduring these dressing changes weren’t enough, I started to get an infection in this part of my leg. I never really looked at the open wound, so can only tell you what I’ve been told. Parts of the wound “turned white, then green and became oozy.” It was at this point that another surgery was scheduled and soon.
I was told that the wound would have to be reopened and cleaned. There was worry that going under anesthesia again—would kill me, that the clots riddling my body—would kill me, the stress from such a minor procedure after two major procedures a month before—would kill me; well, you get the idea. Providing I didn’t die, my leg would be fixed in one of two ways.
The first way was to clean the infection, and if necessary fuse my foot. That means that I would not be able to bend or undulate my foot at all. The bones would be fused and I would walk like Frankenstein. The second way was to clean the infection, and if possible to attach a wound vac to the leg. I never really liked Frankenstein’s gate when he walked, so I opted for the wound vac. That is providing I did not die which remained a distinct possibility.
Here are some things the doctors or nurses forget to tell you when they are explaining the process. They don’t explain about the tape that is used. Or how when the tape is removed, so is every little, tiny, follicle of hair with it. That’s right. Remember those nerves that really don’t work right. The ones that allow the owner to feel residual feeling (read pain) long after pressure had been applied. Think of it as phantom limb pain, only you have a limb there, that doesn’t always feel there—but when it does feel there—you know it. Don’t worry too much about this phenomenon now, it will be explained during a physical therapy session. Yet I digress, let’s get back to the details the medical profession forgets to tell about a wound vac.
Other than the hair being ripped from your skin, there is the lovely sound the wound vac produces. To put is simply and rather crudely the machine farts. That’s right the machine’s flatulence occurs quite often. During a church sermon, when guests come over to visit, during meal times, even in the shower. Think of the most inopportune time, and that’s when the wound vac breaks wind. It can be rather embarrassing at times. Like in the checkout lane at your local supermarket. Of course, you’re so mortified that you can’t even stutter out an explanation and really who would believe you anyway. It wasn’t me; it’s the vacuum attached to my leg. No really!
There is also the smell that people neglected to warn me about. Ever leave hamburger outside in the blazing sun too long? I’m sure that is pretty comparable to the smell that permeated the air when the wound vac was cleaned. I wasn’t told that all the sucking, farting noises were actually pulling dead tissue from my leg, through what became a rather nasty looking tube, to a special compartment in the box. This dried tissue, dead skin and old blood collected in the wound vac. Of course, you just can’t keep carrying that around. It, like any other vacuum cleaner, needed to be emptied for optimum working power. Let’s just say that the sun baked hamburger smell was no match for my wound vac.
Then there are the things that the medical profession does tell you about the wound vac, but rush on so you can’t really take time to process the information. I was told that the wound vac weighed about 4 pounds and came with a strap so that I could wear it as I would a purse. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong! Have you every carried a purse 24 hours a day?
Most of the time ladies will pick up a purse, set it down in the seat of their car, pick it up again, put it down in the grocery cart, pick it up again to pay, put it back in the seat of a car, pick it up to go take it into the house, put it down once in the door. Never does a lady pick up her purse, drive with it, eat with it, shower with it. And never have I ever witnessed a purse with habitual gas. Thus, I must conclude the wound vac is NOT like a purse. It is more like a hideous growth. Once that the doctor assures you he can lance off, but not quite yet.
The worst part of carrying around the vac was not the smell, the flatulence, the cumbersome showering methods that were invented, but the dressing around it. Imagine trying to put on pants. Easily done, most toddlers require very little assistance. Now imagine putting on pants over a very big band aid—no make that a 14 inch bandage. Still not too tough—definitely doable; one just has to go slowly. No imagine putting on pants over the wound only after you’ve navigate a purse, the size of small luggage, through the opening of your pant leg first. Heaven forbid you don’t get the pants the right way and you have to back the wound vac out of the pant leg. It’s kind of like a semi trying to back out of a long tunnel only meant for compact cars. Of course you could unplug the machine for those scant seconds while you dress but then you get the sound and the suction.
Forgive me for not mentioning the annoying ringing sound that the machine shrills at you when it’s not happy. Like when the tissue, skin, blood compartment needs to be changed or when the machine is not properly plugged it or when the hose gets kinked. Several nights I was awakened by this ringing, because the tube had become kinked sometime during the night. Then there is the suction. It’s going to need its own paragraph or two
The suction is what I referred to the first ten or twenty seconds after the wound vac had been turned on. It is when the clear plastic bag, secured to the sides of the wound by industrial strength clear tape is sucked to the wound. This clear plastic sheet has a tube protruding out of it that gets attached to the wound vac. This is how the dead tissue, dead skin, dried blood and all manner of fun things are transported to the wound vac itself. For those of you who have ever wallpapered a room or lined a kitchen cabinet with sticky parchment paper, you’ll understand this concept.
Once you lay down the paper, it must be pressed down, smoothed out, all bubbles, wrinkles and blemishes must be removed. Now do that on an open wound. That’s right. The wound vac sucked the air out of the plastic lining and as that was happening, my Nurse Ratchet pressed firmly on the sides and the wound to make sure sealed and secure. Seriously, my nurse was really very gentle, very professional, and very knowledgeable about wound vacs. She was not really Nurse Ratchet, but more like Florence Nightingale. Still that doesn’t mean the whole process didn’t hurt like ….
I endured the wound vac for a few months, and was ever so happy when it was removed. I felt like painting my face blue, mounting a horse and shouting FREEDOM!!!!! However, it did do the job and if I had to do it again, I would in a heartbeat. Below is a picture of my leg before the wound vac and a shot after it.
Before the Wound Vac
After the Wound Vac
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