A Pain in the Butt

Our 90+ degree heat wave broke today - we only got up to 86, but we've had several rain showers (yeah!).  It's 78 right now, with the humidity at 68%.  I was able to get the Rs walked early, and then came home to take a nap before showering and going out to see Dr. Pohlman for my surgery follow-up.  I told both the surgical nurse and the Doctor about how much pain I was having.  Dr. Pohlman asked if I hated him, and I told him, no, that I just hadn't expected so much pain all the time with this surgery.  I had prepared myself for constant pain for the seton cutting stitch surgery, but he had told me he did a different type of surgery...  What was going on?  He looked at the incision, and while he was doing that, we talked.  He was surprised that I remembered that he talked to me after the surgery, and that I remembered him talking about packing the wound.  I told him I lost the packing in the bathroom of the Recovery Room before I left the hospital.  He hemmed and hawed while he looked and felt, and then said he saw "something" that didn't look right.  Whatever it was, he removed it with tweezers/tiny forceps, while I gasped.  He constantly apologized for causing me pain and discomfort.  Finally, he was done and had me sit up and talk to him.  I hadn't understood what the surgery he did perform last time had consisted of.  He did, indeed, "fillet" the fistula open, and he closed one end with stitches.  The reason I'm having such pain is because the rest of that "fillet" incision is open and draining.  He stated that it is healing, but at a rate a little slower than he expected. And that I will probably have the pain and drainage until the site is totally healed and all scar tissue has formed - which might take another 6 weeks.  In any event, I get to visit his office again in another 2 weeks.  -  But I am healing!!  Yippee!!!