Just curious if anyone else has had or has the same issue. My 1st surgery was 12/17/18. During that surgery, they took the tibia bone from my leg, and a skin graft from my right forearm. As of today, about 90% of both spots have healed up. But I still have a quarter sized open wound on my forearm, and one about 3 times that size still open on my leg. Neither are real painful, just very annoying. The HHN that was coming twice a week stopped back in April. She got them down from very large to where they are today.

Do you think it will hurt anything if I just wait until my next surgery in about a month? I'm sure they will treat them when I am an inpatient again. Or should I go to the wound center now?

Any ideas will be appreciated!!!

Thanks,
Art

I would definitely go to the wound specialists. You do not want to go into surgery with open wounds! All kinds of germs and infections could get into either one or both while hospitalized. Plus thats another month away which could be a big difference in healing. Being 90% healed in 7 months is excellent!!!

If you have had radiation treatments you will notice wound, sores, cuts, etc seem to take forever to heal! Since your surgery was only 7 months ago, you still have lots of time to get the remaining areas to completely heal. You had a very complicated surgery that will take your body over a year to recover from it. When I had my mandibulectomy (after previous rads resulting in very slow healing) It took me closer to 2 years until I actually felt like I was as good as I would ever get. My numerous complications played a major role in making the healing very, very slow! It was so slow, I had the wound care dept., an infectious disease specialist, visiting nurse, 8 months of a picc line with 2x a day IV antibiotics as well as hyperbaric oxygen treatments (HBO) as well as all the different attempts from the wound care team to get everything to heal.

Id also suggest to check with your doc about adding high protein whey powder to your diet. This will increase your daily protein intake which should help speed up your healing.

Good luck!!!!

Art,

I had unhealed wounds after a mandibularectomy at the stoma site, which I had a trache for the duration I was hospitalized for 7 days. It did not close up, so it was covered with dressing upon discharge. It took a month for the stoma to finally close. The fibula site did not fully close, and needed to go every week to the plastic surgeons office for debulking/cleansing.

I was in a nursing home for recovery, and they kept changing the bandages. I already did HBOT twice, and it wasn’t recommended again. The fibula wound never healed, so in about 4 months I had to have it surgically closed. The plastic surgeon took a graft from the right groin to close the fibulua site. That did the trick for me.

Christine is right, don’t wait! See aboit
HBOT, and your ENT about any surgical closure.

Good Luck

Thanks for the advice Christine and Paul.
I will at least def check with ENT and Plastic Surgeon to see what they think I should do. From looking at the one on my leg site, it has gotten bigger so I can see sutures in my future. I'll let you know what they say.

How long does it take to get all your energy back?

My wife says I need to move around more but it's just so hard

Gypsyrock,

I’m a bad example to compare how long it takes to get your energy back as I was in the hospital and nursing home for 6 months from chemo, and lost 130lbs. Took me another 6 months to start walking again. Actually, with a wheel chair to walker and then with a cane, but it took years. I still use a cane for 10 years now. I have to get back to the gym or physically therapy to help get some function back. At one point, I got my weight up to 200lbs, exercising, but my nephrologist told me not to put more weight on as it’s a hardship on the kidneys, which were damaged due to the induction chemo. Then after a few more treatment my weight. Including muscles. were again down 20-40lba, and back up. Currently, I’m 185 not exercising. I think I need to lose 10 pounds, but in time.

Take it slow, and involve your doctors!