The big event for me to begin Week 3 was was finally having those damn staples removed on Day 15. It was also the first time I saw the doctors since my hospitalization. Truthfully, I was really dreading the staple removing procedure. My leg up until that point was still very tender, pretty much all around, except for the parts of my leg that were still numb, and the thought of having 140 staples plucked out was a little unsettling.
Thankfully, those staples are far more shallow than I had imagined. In my mind, they were long like a box staple, but in actuality they're really only like an eighth of an inch long and removing them could not have been less painful. The Dr. has a special tool that lifts them up and out in the least invasive way possible. Don't sweat it, staple removal is a piece of cake.
But you don't go from staples to nothing, you go from staples to sterile strips the entire length of the incision. To my disappointment, the sterile strips seemed just as tight as the staples, but with the positive side being that they were temporary. According to the Dr, they would start to curl after 4-5 days and he was ok with me removing them when they looked ready.
I was still showering every day, even with the daily watering, the sterile strips were still all intact on the fifth day. So at that point, which was Day 20, I started taking warm baths. First, the soaking of my leg felt fantastic. It was still very stiff, so getting in and out of the tub required careful movements, but once in the water, it was great. Over the next few days every time I bathed, more and more of the sterile strips were removed.
The last strips I removed were over the three areas on my calf where the incision line had a black scab. This was the area for the beginning where the skin had been stretched to the maximum and I'd imagine this is where the skin was struggling the most to reattach. Once the final strips were removed, I had three areas of hard scabs surrounded by redness. My wife, who works in a hospital said it was not infected. Instead she referred to those areas as being "angry".
Now that my incision line was completely exposed, I began bathing twice a day. I wasn't soaking the leg for an extended period. I don't think that is recommended, but I filled the tub with enough water to cover my leg in the stretched-straight position. I just wanted to submerge my leg in water without having it soaked. Because I was still walking with a cane, and my gait was not very graceful, I wanted to keep up with my stretches and massages. I found while being in the water, my skin was at its most relaxed, and getting improved stretching results became my priority. After each bath, I would rub Vitamin E cream into the incision line and Nivea on the rest of my leg. Things were starting to loosen up and I was just sticking to the routines that were aiding my slow improvment.
The only minor complication was those three angry spots on my incision that were taking their sweet time to heal. The redness around the scabs was a little worrisome, but given how good the rest of the incision looked, I wasn't that concerned. I did alternate between applying Bacitracin and allowing the areas to be exposed to the air. If it got any worse, I probably would have emailed a photo to the Dr. for an opinion, but it did appear to be slowly getting better. I was thankful that was my only complication.
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