When I awoke from my surgery, I had no idea that I had been in surgery for 4 hours. Finding out after having surgery that you were septic is frightening. You can die from sepsis. When my small bowel perforated I never thought about getting sepsis all through me. I knew it could happen but I was so drugged up that it was a blur. My surgeon had really no idea how septic I was till he was opening me up.
I was in so much pain I and so messed up that when I woke up it was better we didn't talk much to the infection. It was a scary place mentally to be because you have no control of your body. I noticed I had these tubes on the left and right abdomen. At the end of the tube is almost shaped like a light bulb. When I looked at them I noticed this fluid that looked like strawberry lemonade. The fluid that was left behind from surgery were coming out through these tubes. When my surgeon opened me up they had to take all this sepsis out of me before I went into septic shock. What might have taken a couple hour surgery ended up being a a major emergency surgery. So these tubes that excreted this pink lemonade looking fluid was infection leaving my body.
The Jackson-Pratt drain which was what those tubes were and they used to collect the infectious fluids that were left behind.after surgery. What they did with them was during the CNAs rounds they would check my stats like blood pressure, oxygen, pulse, and temperature. They also had to measure the amount of fluids that came out of the drain too. So every night I remember a CNA would come in and do all my vitals and then squeeze the contents out of both tubes. The JP drain worked pretty easily. The tube was very squishy so when the fluid was emptied they would keep squeezing and then shut the light bulb looking thing. That would then create suction and that's how the fluids would come out in the drain.
These were so uncomfortable. They were held on by these one little stitch. They hung out on my sides so I had to be very careful. At this point I was not out of bed or walking . It is a very awful feeling. I was so scared the JP drains would get tugged and come out. I had that fear because it was sitting me right in the face. When I was sleeping is when I was honestly scared because I move in my sleep. I thought what happens if I turn and pull one of these tubes out ? It was so uncomfortable and I had almost tugged. As I think of it, my belly churns from the thought of pulling on my JP Drains...
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