Continuing in the drama that is Lane‘s leg-boob implant-gone-wrong (see also: part one and part two), Lane updates us with his healing, which like the implant, seemed to be going well but then turned out far worse than expected. He writes in describing his ordeal (and includes a gory picture of course),

Thursday night I had to take out the stitches that had been put in ten days earlier. My leg once again decided to let a great deal of clear lymphatic fluid out through the wound. Once I finished draining my leg I carefully removed the stitches. As I did so the wound opened right back up a second time. This time the tissue around the wound looked purple and dead. I cut away the dead tissue and decided it was time to stop screwing around and visit the hospital. I flushed the wound with saline, packed it with sterile gauze, then sensi-wrapped it and headed to the hospital.

All the way there I thought of a million excuses I could give them in order to prevent anyone from getting into trouble. Once in the parking lot I decided it would be in my best interest to just come clean with the truth in case something more serious was happening to me. I went up the the front desk, told the nurse that I had a large wound on my calf from an implant extraction that was going to require stitches. She immediately took down my info, filled out the forms and brought me to the suture room.

Ten minutes later a nurse approached me with her clipboard and documents and asked me what happened. Instead of unwrapping my leg I pulled up the images on my blackberry and showed her what we did, what had happened, and how it was looking now. She smiled and said “wow, that’s amazing”, followed by “I hope you did this all sterile”.

I explained all the precautions we had taken and the setup we used and the implant material, and then waited for the lecture as she left to get a doctor and surgeon to come look at the wound. To my surprise not one word of “you shouldn’t have done this” came out of their mouths. They checked my Blackberry, looked at the wound, and then told me, “good call on removing the dead tissue”. They said they wouldn’t suture it back up because the skin was too tight in this area and believed that it was part on the reason it keeps weeping and looks irritated. They said to clean it once a day with sterile saline, gob Polysporin over it and cover it with new gauze, then wrap it back up. I was told to expect it to take four to six weeks to heal, and six to eight months for the scar to turn white.

I was really expecting to have to deal with the health board and get a few speeches about the dangers but they were actually very helpful, gave me a few reasons most implants reject and every one was the same as BME or Brian had discussed already. They felt it was a simple case of rejection and the wound being too tight and sent me on my way saying there was no sign of infection and keep up the good work looking after it. WOW!

These days almost all “medical encounter” stories I hear are quite positive… Either way, if you have a problem that feels like it might be moving into territory that’s beyond what you’re comfortable with, do what Lane did and visit a doctor!