My red belly button

My belly button needed dressing four times daily, but the abdominal wound only required re-doing every four or five days, so Geoff did the belly button and I initially went into the local hospital to get the dressings changed on my abdomen.

After a week or so things hadn't changed much, so I rang the SCGH dressings clinic and then we had a bit of a discussion with my GP and the nurses at the hospital about what to do. We altered the dressings regime and changed the antibiotic at the same time, and gave it a few days to so if the changes had any effect.

SCGH had insisted that I return to Perth after two weeks, but the changes made by the local nurses seemed to be working wonders, so they took photos of the state of my wounds, emailed them to Perth, and talked the dressings clinic into agreeing that the local health professionals were coping perfectly well, and that I didn't have to fly back to Perth just have a couple of dressings checked.

After only another week of attention from the community nurse I was off their books, my abdomen no longer threatened to unzip, and my belly button was well enough to go back to Geoff just treating it once a day.

I did have two other annoying results of the surgery. I had a urinary tract infection, probably brought on by the catheter - this was wiped out by the vast numbers of antibiotics I was put on to counteract the other infections. More irritating, I developed a rash and a desperate itch just before I left hospital. It got much worse in the week I was in Perth, with little blisters similar to a heat rash. The pattern on my body more-or-less followed where the bra and corset sat, but it also spread out a bit from the edges. No-one was able to suggest anything more than a possible reaction to one of the antibiotics I had been taking. However, I still have vestiges of the rash and a lot of itch a month later, and at times I have to stop myself scratching around my abdomen and back.