Post CABG leg problem

I am not a wound care expert but I assure you that alcohol is toxic to your
cells. Call a cease fire to that assault immediately!! It will likely
never heal if you continue to irritate it.

Then, ask the doc for a consult with a wound care specialist. There are
WOCN nurses (Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nurses) who perform magic. Do not
take no for an answer. Call the HMO administrator if you run into
resistance. You need wound care. This is not a normal complication of
surgery.

If you continue to get resistance, ask if they would rather pay for an
amputation and the therapy that accompanies it. (Note, I do not think it
will come to that but it makes for a good bargaining point🙂)

I would love to have time to address all your problems or at least offer
sympathy, but am just distracting myself away from a larger project. But, I
can assure you that wounds to your lower extremities are serious (especially
if you have diabetes) and there is much more effective treatment available.

Good luck. Please keep us posted.

j
"boogie350" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I had a CABGx5 in September of 2002. Since then, I had been doing well
cardiac-wise, but slow in recovering from the surgery itself.

I returned to work May 15th, 2003. Soon after, I developed a small
hole in my second-lowest harvest site. It had been red and hard (scar
tissue according to docs) around that particular incision. My doc gave
me keyfex twice a day and told me to keep it bandaged until it healed.
Well, four months and ten different antibiotics later, it hasn't. In
fact, it is now 3/8th of an inch in diameter and a second wound
developed about half an inch below it that is over 1/2 an inch around,
and both are draining (I change band-aids daily). The area is recessed
quite a bit, like two pits.

What makes this all screwy is my primary physician was "asked to
leave" his group practice because "it wasn't making enough money", so
leave he did, immediately. The practice has been turned over to
another physician which I haven't seen yet. I WANT MY OLD DOC BACK,
DAMN YOU CROOKS!!!

I also spent a week in the hospital for the depression this all
brought on in the middle of all this. One thing I can say... my HMO
might as well have handed me a loaded gun and said "try not to get
anything on my suit", because when it comes to depression, they could
give a [censored] less if you die or not.

Oh, and I returned to work a few weeks ago, just to walk into a
layoff, and my sick leave company ripped me off for two weeks of sick
pay (denied). I won't go into the financial disaster we're in right
now...

Back to the leg, I've been trying to let a scab form on it but it
evidently stays pretty moist, so I try to let it air out as much as
possible. Then, I squirt it down with 99% isopropyl (yes, I wanna
scream!), let it evaporate a few minutes and put another bandage on
it. Right now, I have one of those newfangled Curad rubber-like
"extended bandages" on it, but I'm thinking that probably should come
off, considering it does drain.

I'm so frustrated right now it's not funny. Nobody seems to have a
clue what the hell this even is... they did a culture sample just
before I went in the hospital (I went in a few days before my doc
left) and I never heard anything more about it. I've been on
everything from Keyfex to Cipro. So, what, I just gotta live with
gnarly-looking oozing holes in my leg?? I don't think so, Tim!

But I'm at a loss as to what to do. I don't know if my goofy HMO would
consider this "an emergency worthy of ER treatment" or I'd just go to
ER and let them deal with it. I know I can't just let it go because
it's obviously not going to get better on it's own, and my HMO is all
confused about "who is now my PCP?" because of my doc leaving, which
I'm pretty [censored] about myself (I'm not the only one - it made the TV
news). He was a great doctor and it's sad what they did to him in the
name of money. So, I'm really tempted to leave their "medical group"
for a doc in another, but they're few and far between as far as good
docs go anymore.

But I'm still stumped about this... why would it just happen some 9
months after the fact? It doesn't make sense to me. The only thing I
can figure is that the flesh is so close to the bone there (about 4
inches above the ankle) and the scar tissue is around there, yet, I
have an incision lower than that one, right on the "bony" part, that's
fine. I just don't get it.