Day 17 - Review and action by surgeon

By the time of my weekly visit to the surgeon, I was feeling very despondent indeed, and completely unable to make a decision on the choices he offered me, which were to

1. do nothing and wait another week or so to see what happened
   
2. go back to hospital and have the hematoma removed in surgery (which would mean opening up most of the scar)
   
3. trying to drain some of the hematoma with a needle, to relieve the pressure.

To his great credit, he allowed me to have a bit of a cry, and assured me that all of this was absolutely NOT my fault, and that it was completely unrelated to any activity (or lack of it) on my part. He explained that the haematoma had been created the first night after surgery, and that unfortunately the drain had not removed enough of it before it clotted. He made it sound like I had been a little too efficient in healing, rather than deficient, and this was a great comfort to me. 

I agreed to let him try to drain some of it, so he inserted a thick needle (fortunately in the numb part of my breast), and to our great satisfaction he removed about 60mls of old blood. He explained that this was only a small fraction of what remained, but already BB felt happier and less swollen and sore.

I took this photo when I returned home, and it shows the small dressing over the puncture wound, as well as the new skin growing over the triangular raw area where the dressing had been removed too hastily in hospital.


This was Day 17, and if you compare it to the previous photo (Day 12), you can see that the drainage has indeed reduced the swelling, which had increased even more during the intervening week.