Tag: stitches

Swelling From Surgery

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

December 2 2013 I had my parotidectomy surgery on November 20th, and at first I didn’t notice any swelling because I was totally numb, so if there was any swelling, the pressure didn’t bother me.  After 5 days the pressure from the swelling felt like it was going to pop my stitches.  I Googled swelling after surgery and what I read on more than a few websites was to use ice to help with the swelling, so I did, and it did help.

There is a tube sticking out of my neck that drains the fluids into a little bulb that is squeezed to create a vacuum.  The fluids were red at first, but then it turned pink and day by day it turned a lighter shade of pink, and after 5 days nothing came out, it was empty, but that was when the swelling started.  I think the swelling was preventing any fluids from coming out.  When I started using ice, fluid started coming out, but it was a dark color of red, much like the blood you see at the bottom of frozen meat.  When I stopped using ice, the fluid turned back to its pink shade, but not much is really coming out now.

My stitches seem to have turned white around the top and along my ear, but it is still black on my neck, but it is turning white.  My partner says that it looks like it is healing and there won’t be much of a scar at all.  I am sure there will be a scar, but it won’t be noticeable along my ear, but more on my neck.  If I grew a beard it would basically cover the scar up completely, but I’m not into growing beards.  For one, it itches like crazy and two, I am sure it would still be stubble after a month.  I don’t grow hair very fast on my face.  I can literally go for a whole week and it just looks like stubble, as if I haven’t shaved in a couple of days.  I can only tolerate it for one week, I have to shave because the itching drives me insane lol.

I will see the doctor on Friday to have the tube removed from my neck.  I really look forward to that because this tube is driving me crazy.  I keep accidentally pulling on it and that hurts like hell because it is stitched onto my neck.  I can see that it has been pulled out a little bit, but not too much.  When I first came home from the hospital after surgery they put tape on the tube on my shirt, and that tape only lasted for a few days and then I had to toss it.  I didn’t have any of the same or medical grade tape to keep it on my shirt, so I just let it hang loose, big mistake.  Last night I had the bright idea to use the packing tape that I use to tape the labels on the envelopes when I sell keychains and earrings on Etsy.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of that earlier.  It would have saved me a ton of pain.

The numbness is still there and it drives me crazy lol.  It is starting to go away so that’s good.  I was worried that I would start feeling pain again if the numbness went away because I ran out of the Percocet that the doctor gave to me after surgery.  I have prescription strength Ibuprofen, but I also have something that my regular doctor gave to me for the pain that is just as good as the Percocet, that is Tramadol, but I only take 1 pill twice a day unlike the Percocet which was 2 pills 4 times a day.  I do seem to be doing good without the pain meds though.  Occasionally I will feel what seems like I am being stuck with a needle multiple times in one spot, but it goes away after a few minutes.  It doesn’t hurt bad, but I expect there to be some pain considering my face was opened up and stitched back together after 4 hours.  No biggie.

So anyway, that is my update.

One more week with a tube

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

parotid gland surgery week 2

Last week on November 20th I had my surgery to remove my Parotid gland because I had a stone that was basically the size of a marble which was preventing saliva from being released into my mouth.

If yesterday was not Thanksgiving, today I would be at the surgery clinic getting the tube removed from my neck.  Since the surgeon is only in the surgery clinic on Fridays, I will have to wait another week to have the tube removed.  It’s been more than a few days since anything drained into the tube, so it’s not doing me any good being in there.

I’ve had more pain in the last few days from the swelling than I had when I first had the surgery.  There didn’t seem to be too much swelling in the beginning, it only started swelling after 5 days.  Today it still seems swelled up, but the pressure isn’t bothering me.  Then again, the day isn’t over yet and I’m thinking about getting the ice pack to help the pressure.

It doesn’t seem to be as red today as it has been so that is a good sign.  When I say red, I don’t mean the sutures, I mean my cheek and ear.  It seems from the picture to be a good healthy color.

Next Friday can’t come quick enough though because I really can’t wait for this tube to be removed lol.  It’s more embarrassing than anything.  Last night I went to our neighbors house and totally forgot myself and I went over there with just my shirt and jeans.  I should have remembered to wear my hoodie so I could have covered my head and my tube.  It didn’t freak anyone out except for me lol.  Oh well.

Day 5 After Parotidectomy Surgery

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog5 Comments

surgery scar 5 days

My surgery was on November 20th so it has been 5 days and I thought I would take a picture to show my progress.  It appears that my ear is swelling up and my face is a lot redder than it was.  I had just gotten out of the bath tub when I took the picture on the right, but it has been more than an hour since then and it is still just as red.  All of the red area is completely numb.

The way the doctor cut my face and stitched it up was perfect.  He followed my ear all the way down and went behind my ear lobe before going down following the line of my beard.  Genius!  In my opinion, he did an excellent job.  I saw pictures of other people who had the same surgery and their incisions didn’t look this good, so I feel very blessed that I had such an artist.

My face has a golf ball sized hole in front of my ear where my gland used to be swollen.  I figured it would have filled in by now, but it is still dented.  I’m sure it will fill in, I’m not worried about that.  It is still numb too.

The only thing that isn’t numb is where the tube is sticking out.  I don’t really care too much for having a tube sticking out of my neck.  It would be awesome if I didn’t have to have it in me for 2 whole weeks.  It was supposed to be removed after 7 days, and they even wrote a note on the paperwork that said “Follow-up KMC ENT Clinic next Friday.”  Well, that is the day after Thanksgiving and they are closed that day.  The reason they said Friday and not Wednesday is because that surgeon is only in the surgery clinic on Friday.  I guess he is the only one who can take the tube out so I will have to wait until December 6th.

I have been catching up on my sleep.  Today I woke up to the sound of my alarm on my phone to tell me to take my pills at 8am.  I had other pills to take at 10am and it had to wake me up again for those.  Then my partner woke me up at 12:30pm and I decided I wanted to get out of bed.  I don’t like sleeping the day away lol.

Another good thing about this is that I am losing weight again.  That’s not always a good thing because the reason I am losing weight is because of the medication, but I am using that to my advantage.  I am normally always hungry, so since I don’t feel too hungry all the time, I am eating the same amount of food I ate when I lost 70lbs.  I have been eating a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerio’s for breakfast with a banana and Silk Vanilla Light Almond Milk.  I ate a Yoplait light Strawberry yogurt at 10am which is my usual snack time and I ate a Weight Watchers Smart Ones meal with Fettuccine Alfredo and Chicken.  It is my 3pm snack time now so I will have a banana, then at dinner I will have another Weight Watchers Smart Ones meal.

When I stopped losing weight in July, I was still eating this same diet, although I was eating a little bit more food and I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep which seems to be the key.  I am getting more sleep now and eating the right foods, so I am losing weight again.  When I stopped losing weight I was 192lbs, but then I went back up to 202lbs and fluctuated between 202 and 210.  Last week when I had my surgery I was 208.  Today I am 199.8.  So I will just keep doing what I am doing to help get me back down to 192.  Whatever it takes, right?  This was the boost I needed and hopefully I will continue to lose weight.

Well, back to bed I go.

Recovering from Surgery

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I am still recovering from surgery.  Been laying in bed reading the 12th Xanth book “Man From Mundania”.  The meds make me very sleepy though, so it’s hard to concentrate, but I do my best.  My face around my ear and my ear are still numb and it feels very odd to be numb and itchy at the same time.  I’ve never had surgery so naturally I had no idea what this would be like.

There is a tube sticking out of my neck to drain the fluids that I was only supposed to have for 1 week, but since the doctor is only there on Fridays and they are closed the day after Thanksgiving, I have to have the tube for 2 weeks.  It doesn’t bother me, but I was hoping to not have it any more than I have to because it hurts sometimes when I accidentally pull on it.  It’s also very disgusting lol.  We usually go to Golden Corral on Thanksgiving because it’s easier to have them do all the work, but with the stitches and the tube, I just can’t see me walking around a restaurant filling my plate without feeling like I’m being stared at and judged.  I already had someone blatantly staring at my stitches while talking to me and seeing the disgusted look on his face which made me never want to leave the house again.

I honestly don’t mind the cooking and cleaning, but since it is just the two of us and we really don’t need to cook that much food, it doesn’t make much sense buying and cooking so many different dishes.  I think if we can just get some chicken for the crock pot, a couple of potatoes and a couple of yams and a pumpkin pie we should be fine.  That’s really all I care to eat anyway.

I haven’t been eating as much as I normally have been.  I don’t know if it’s the medicine, but I’m just not hungry which means I am losing weight.  Yes, I have literally lost 6lbs since Wednesday.  I love knowing that I am losing weight, but not because the medicine is making me sick, but because I’m eating right and trying to lose weight.  I don’t know if that makes sense.

Well, I really just wanted to do a status update, but I was up to 3 paragraphs and I figured it was big enough for a blog post so I switched over to blogging lol.  I’m finished so back to bed for me.

Parotidectomy Surgery

On By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Health, Pain3 Comments

parotidectomy surgery

Yesterday was my parotidectomy surgery to remove the entire parotid gland on the right side of my face.  It’s also known as the saliva gland.  There were several stones that were blocking the path which caused the saliva to stay in my gland causing it to stretch, which hurt like a mother trucker.

When I woke up in the recovery room I was totally confused.  I had no idea where I was or how I got there.  I felt like I had been in a car accident, like a Mack truck crashed into my face lol.  That’s a bit severe, but you know what I mean.  I had trouble waking up too.  You know how when you didn’t get enough sleep the night before and people are forcing you to wake up and your body is fighting you and you can barely open your eyes?  That’s how it was waking up in recovery.  I wanted to wake up, but I was having a hard time.

The nurse came over to me to talk to me.  I asked her what happened, why I was here because I was still confused, but then the memory of what happened started coming back to me.  I said oh wait I remember.  She asked me why I was there and I said to remove my parotid gland.

The doctor came to me and was telling me what he found.  The cat scan with contrast told them that the stone was 1cm which is pretty big, but it wasn’t just 1 stone, there were 3.  After the surgery, he told me that it was the size of his pinky finger tip, you know the part of the tip that has the nail and he held his fingers up to where the finger bends.  That was how big it was.  Plus he said there was a lot of infection in the gland.  He sent it to the lab.

He wanted me to come back in 7 days to remove the tubing that is sticking out of my neck into a ball which collects the drainage, and I just called them to make that appointment, but this doctor is only in the surgery clinic on Friday’s and he won’t be there next week due to Thanksgiving.  She wanted to make the appointment for December 6th and I was like whoa, I thought I only had to have this for 7 days.  I asked her to ask the doctor to call me to tell me what to do.  Since he is only in the clinic on Friday, I hope he calls me this Friday to tell me what he suggests I do.  If I can just come in as a walk in and have them remove the tube then that would be fantastic, otherwise I will have to wait until December 6th to have it removed.

During surgery, they intubated me to help me breathe.  When I speak now, it’s with a lower volume and a softer tone.  I’m sure it’s temporary, but I kind of like it lol.

Dr. Trang at Kern Medical Center did a wonderful job with the surgery.  He made sure that my nerves weren’t damaged and the stitches are beautiful and I know it will heal nicely so you barely even notice them.  Scar cream is a bit on the expensive side, but I will use some of that to make the scar go away.

2013-11-21_13-07-57Anyway, he prescribed 2 medications for me.  Keflex which is an antibiotic and Percocet for pain.  I have never taken Percocet before so I don’t know if it’s addictive or not.  I hope not because I don’t like to have any vices.  It says it’s Oxycodone/Acetaminophen which is generic for Percocet.

I told my aunt that I was taking Keflex which by the way I’ve taken before.  She told me that it will cause a yeast infection (YIKES!) so I need to eat at least 1 yogurt a day.  My yogurt of choice is Yoplait.

I fortunately don’t have any pain and I am not as exhausted as I thought I would be.  I mean I’m not laying in bed feeling sorry for myself.  I actually have my normal amount of energy if you can believe that.  My partner said that it looks like the hole in my face is already starting to fill up.  I don’t know how, and I certainly can’t see it filling up or what it would be filling up with.  I’m positive that everything will go back into place and the scar won’t be too bad and everything will be fine.  I don’t have any worries.

Here are a few more pictures.

Earrings for Men

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Etsy, Hobby, NoomLeave a comment

checkered 1

I’ve been so focused on making the keychains and keychain style earrings for women that I totally forgot that I actually wanted to make earrings for men so I could make some for myself.  I finally figured out how to make the studs out of the plastic lanyard “gimp” by only making a couple of stitches before gluing them and sticking them to plastic studs.

black and white 3

This is the pair that I made for myself, I made another pair to sell.  When I was a kid, my parents bought me a pair of Vans with the black and white checkered pattern and for some reason I’ve been a fan of the checkered pattern ever since.  I made one in every color, except for orange because when I mix the orange with black, the orange is translucent so it turns brown.  It’s not pretty.  So I have red, yellow, green, blue, purple and white with black.  I made them in all those colors to sell, but I will be making myself one in each color.

gold and silver I also have a pair in silver and a pair in gold.  The silver is a solid silver ribbon with a mirror finish in clear gimp.  The gold is different though in the sense that it looks gold, but it’s sparkly.  When you look at it and tilt it, you see the little color spots seem to change color with the lighting.  I honestly don’t know how else to explain it.  I would have liked to have bought some solid gold like the solid silver with the mirror finish, but they didn’t have any.  They had the same type of silver as the gold, but I wanted solid silver.

These studs aren’t just for the studs, ladies can wear them too, of course.  I also have the Breast Cancer Awareness pink color in solid pink, pink and white and pink and black.  Anyone can wear those actually.  You don’t have to be a woman to wear them, you can be a man who wears them in solidarity, or whatever reason you have for wanting to wear them.

pink 1

I am quite proud of my ability to make these earrings.  I have listed them on Etsy for a mere $3 a pair.  I didn’t want to ask too much for these earrings because I am not a professional, these are just a hobby and the only reason I am selling them is to help pay for a new bicycle so I can start losing more weight with Noom.  Which reminds me, I’m going to make some solid green earrings for myself for when I start riding my future bike.

So to respond to the men who have asked for earrings, here you go.  If you would like a specific color combination, there is a link in every pair of earrings listed for requesting a custom color.  Just tell me know which two colors you would like and I will make them.

Plastic Canvas TARDIS Box

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts5 Comments

I had previously made a plastic canvas pattern, but I gave up on the actual project because I couldn’t figured it out. I thought I deleted the post, but I guess I didn’t because someone came here and downloaded it and tried making it, and it was way too messed up lol.

So I have remade the pattern so it actually works. Here is the new TARDIS Plastic Canvas PDF file for you to download. I will be make a video tutorial and I will add it to this post as soon as I make it. Check back soon.

Christmas Yarn That I Can’t Use

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts1 Comment

I was diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome a few years ago after crocheting for 20 years.  I didn’t crochet every day, but the last few years that I was able to crochet, let’s just say I crocheted a lot and it ruined my hands.  Although I cannot say if that is what ruined my hands, but when I crochet, I get numbness in both hands and my right hand gets pinching in the palm.

I haven’t crocheted for several years because when I was diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, I decided I would stop crocheting to give my hands time to rest and heal so that some day I might be able to crochet again.  That some day has come and I still can’t crochet.

Last week I gave away all of my yarn to someone who needs it more than I do.  I decided that I didn’t want to part with everything, so I kept the Christmas Ombre yarn which is a color that has not been made in at least 12 years that I know of, but I’m sure it hasn’t been made in more than 12 or 15 years.  I have held onto this yarn because I have wanted to make a Christmas blanket and had hoped that I could, but I just don’t see that happening.

Last night I decided that I was going to make one granny square.  I crocheted the chain, then did a slip stitch and began making a cluster and both of my hands went numb right away and I started to feel the pinching in my right palm.  I thought, screw that, I’m going to make this square if it’s the last thing I do, but I couldn’t do it.  I did make 3 rounds, but had to undo the whole thing because I decided against clusters, I wanted to make the clusters 3 double crochet stitches instead, but I couldn’t do it because of my hands.  It is sitting on my desk with the 8 chain round and 3 chain and 2 double crochets to make the first cluster, that’s it.

Why does it have to be this way?  I have been good, I haven’t been a bad person, why can’t I make a simple granny square?  Is it too much to ask?  I just want to make a simple blanket, why can’t I do it?  I feel like my skill has been amputated and that I am useless, not that I was very useful before, but I’m even less useful now.

Here I can sit typing out a post that is at count 411 words, but I can’t crochet one simple square.  It isn’t fair!  Why is it that my carpal tunnel syndrome doesn’t apply to typing?  Not that I want that to be taken away from me too, but why is it I can do one thing with my hands, but not the other?  I don’t get it.

Ok, whatever, I am going to make this blanket.  I can suffer the pain enough to do one simple square every day until I have all of the squares that are needed to make a blanket.  Every time I complete a square, I can sew it to the one I did the day before, this way there won’t just be a ton of squares with no purpose.  I think I can certainly accomplish that… right?

So this is my new project, wish me luck!  I’m gonna need it lol.

Emergency Room

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, DoctorLeave a comment

We went to the store tonight and I bought a can of Slim Fast Optima because it controls your appetite for 4 hours it says. During the day I really don’t have much of an appetite, it’s typically after 6pm when my appetite comes at me.

I will eat dinner at 6pm but an hour later I’m hungry again and I keep wanting to eat until about 1am and that’s bad. You aren’t supposed to eat past a certain time, I think 8pm or something. So I needed something to help me out with that so I bought Slim Fast.

Well, so I got out my slim fast shaker cup and filled it to the 8oz line with some low-fat milk then I put a scoop of slim fast in it then shook the cup. Then I looked over at my blender and thought oh I should put it in there and add some ice to it and I got a real milk shake.

So I went over to the blender, it’s not a big blender, it’s a 1 glass blender so it doesn’t make a pitcher full of drinks, just 1 glass at a time. So I went to unscrew it from the unit and when I did that I unscrewed the glass from the blade instead of the whole thing from the unit.

So I sat the glass down and grabbed the blade part and tried to unscrew it and I was turning it the wrong direction and completely forgetting that I had it plugged in, I was holding the unit with my right hand and accidentally pressed the button on it and it blended my left hand.

Well, thankfully it didn’t do a lot of damage. All it did was it made a half round mark on the palm of my hand, it cut deep enough into my skin that I had to go to the E.R. The cut near my index finger was superficial compared to the cut near my thumb.

I didn’t have to wait that long and I got seen and they cleaned it up with iodine and the doctor used Dermabond to glue the cut closed instead of stitches. It doesn’t hurt or anything, I just gotta be careful and not get it wet for the next 5-10 days which is how long it will be on before it falls off. I was very, very extremely lucky that it wasn’t worse. I could be missing a finger.