u/advwench

Putting this out there for future googlers.

My surgeon traditionally places two JP drains following surgery and removes them at 1 week post op, provided output is under 30 cc per day. With me, one came out on schedule but the other has been a very active drain with a daily range between 100-135 cc. Yesterday’s total was 125. In his experience, this volume requires extra treatment.

Today he prescribed oral tranexamic acid, which is used to treat heavy period bleeding but has also been found effective at lowering post surgery drainage volume. I emptied 60 cc after 12 hours this evening and took my first pill at the same time. Three hours later, there’s maybe 3 cc in the drain.

I might be able to pull this thing out yet!

Some backstory: in 2023 I moved my mother within five minutes of me (FL-NY) because her health was failing and she lost her mobile home in a hurricane. She’s 83. While I know it sounds like I’m blaming her for the timing, she has been hospitalized within weeks of major milestones of MY life approximately every six months. When she first got sick while in Florida, it was the week before finals of my first semester back to college. She has fallen within a month of international travel plans three times, requiring me to cancel my trip every time. It’s something we low-key joke about although it really does bother me. Again I know the timing wasn’t on purpose, but it always seems to be at the most inconvenient time it possibly can.

Her last fall was at the end of May of this year. She was in the hospital for a week after a hip replacement and a rehab center – which she was supposed to get out of in early July – until this past Friday. Yesterday I had a tummy tuck with breast lift and reduction with a surgeon a couple of hours from me. I’ve had this planned for a while and and told her that as much as I love her, I can’t keep postponing my life, especially something like this, on the off chance something might happen to her. She agreed. Again, jokes were made that she’d probably trip over something the day before.

Welp, while I was still in recovery yesterday, my aunt called and then texted me in a panic when I didn’t answer, saying my mom had called her and there was a problem, but she wasn’t sure what. I didn’t see the text until I was being discharged; cue my heart rate and blood pressure going through the roof and discharge being canceled until I was back to normal 🙄 I figured it had to be something really horrible if they were reaching out to me within hours of surgery and at first, I was going to ignore it, but I realized that everything I was imagining was probably worse than what was really going on so I called my mom. The “emergency” was that my mom needed a copy of a canceled check that my aunt gave her a few years ago before her Medicaid could be approved. Mom has a letter explaining exactly what four things she needs to provide to move forward. I texted my aunt last week to explain her part in this and what we need from her and yet between these two adult women, they decided it would be a good idea to bother me with an hours of major surgery because they didn’t know what to do. I’m thankful it was nothing serious but come on now!

I’m back home resting and Mom just texted me “when you’re feeling up to it we really need to go over this stuff with the check.” I texted back “OK so maybe next week possibly the week after. I will not deal with this anytime soon. You may feel it’s an emergency, but it is not an emergency and I am trying to recover from major surgery, in pain, and on opiates. Please do not bother me about this again. There is nothing I can do about it anyway this is between you and aunt Kathy as I do not have a copy of the check.” Now I’m being a meanie, of course.

Shutting off my phone is not an option because I’m waiting to hear back from my surgeon with a follow up on how I’m doing after yesterday, and to be honest, I have some questions about the gross stuff in my drain so I really do want to speak to him. I can feel my stress level rise even thinking about my mother at this point. I know it’s me who controls my reaction and I need to stop that, but 57 years of guilt and manipulation, and man that’s hard.

This is a partial vent and partial request for suggestions on what to do, other than turning off my phone. I’m almost wishing I had lied and said there were complications and I had to stay in New York City for a full week; however, had I done that she would’ve made it all about her and insisted on taking her barely-walking self down to New York City to stay with me, even if I insisted that it wasn’t a good idea. As it was, it took a lot to convince her not to try and come with me just for the day. The last thing I needed was an elderly woman who can barely walk even with a walker, trying to help me before and after surgery. She doesn’t fully realize yet that she is no longer a help when it comes to this stuff, but just one more thing for me to worry about when I should be focused on me.

Goin’ off the rails in a crazy drain…

Prioritizing our health when the parents won’t make simple decisions on their own

Sweetness and Light

Looking for personal experiences with breast lift/panniculectomy done by Dr Mark Albert of Albert Plastic Surgery, NYC

Anything I shouldn’t miss while I’m there?