7 Weeks Post-Op

I am almost 2 months out already!  It seems so long ago sometimes, but other times it's hard to believe it has been that long!

This past week I have been allowed to experiment with sleeping on the ear!  The rule is that I must keep something behind it to keep it from getting forced into the side of my head.  Since cartilage is living tissue, sleeping on that ear without support behind it could cause the shape of the cartilage to change shape over time.  I am still trying to find the best way to keep my support on.  The support I made out of a large Telfa gauze pad that I stuffed 4 cotton balls into in a row on one side.  I taped the ends, and shortened the area without cotton balls so that the support gently slopes from flat to 3-D...just like the back of the ear.  However, there's no convenient way to make anything stay behind your ear since there is hair on two sides...and mine is also short and fine.  So, you have to wear some sort of head wrap.  I have a few different things I've made and/or bought, but I haven't found the perfect one yet...they all tend to creep up overnight and end up going over the middle of my ears...which increases the swelling in my ear.  I'm working on it though, and it's getting better.

That's the thing I've noticed most this week: I have MUCH more swelling overnight than before.  Luckily Dr. Griffiths isn't concerned as long as it's just from laying horizontal overnight.  It would become an issue if something tight rubbed on the ear for long periods of time though, as that could create an ulcer.  Dr. Griffiths was actually more concerned about my abdominal pain.  I have noticed that certain activities really make me sore there.  I wasn't sure how big of a deal that was to my healing, but he said I should avoid doing anything that aggravates it.  This is frustrating, because the very few things that cause the pain, are things I really need to be doing (i.e. working on my quilt orders...ironing and using my rotary cutter are the primary irritants I have found).  So, I'm trying to be patient and just do a little bit of quilting as I can tolerate it.  Before I knew it was going to cause pain, I quilted too long and had so much pain I could feel tightness while breathing and laughing again!  The scary thing was that if I raised my right arm out in front of me, I could feel a popping/snapping sound/movement in my chest!  That is a definite no-no.  I took it very easy on my abs for a while after that one...

My two skin graft harvest sites are FINALLY healed!  Still very red/purple and shedding very thin layers of dead skin as it completely heals...but no more scabs of any kind!

The incision from the rib graft harvest site has been healed from scabs for a few weeks now, but I did have to remove a stitch from it the other day...there was a circle of red puffiness about 1/4 inch in diameter with a white scabby looking line in part of it (that was the stitch that was infected).  I sterilized my pointy tweezers and grabbed the stitch and it came right out.  That spot is back to normal now.  The stitch I removed was dissolvable, and may have dissolved over more time (or my body might have worked it out), but since it was clearly showing signs of a small infection, I thought it was best to help get it out.  I can see a deeper black (non-dissolvable) stitch at the very end of the incision, but that one is not irritating anything for now, and too far down for me to remove.

Over this last week, by evening, my new ear looks really nice.  There is starting to be a depression around the entire rim area with the decrease in swelling!  The back of the ear is completely closed up now, and the whole ear is definitely not as red as a few weeks ago.

My biggest annoyance is the itching!  My scalp and the outside edges of the new ear itch A LOT!  But, they are all still numb, so I can't lightly scratch/rub/touch the area to quiet the itch.  Luckily, my scalp has started to regain a little bit of feeling in the past couple days, but sometimes the itch goes too deep for that to do much.

Now, as always, it's time for the picture updates!

See you next week!

The last collage has photos at 7 weeks post-op...except for the swollen one in the lower left corner.