I haven’t updated my progress like I planned in a bit because I went through surgical complications starting 4/13 the day after having my packing removed.

I was standing in the shower and looked down and the entire floor was bright red. I called the surgical staff and was told to put pressure on it and if it didn’t stop to call 911. Sadly I started to pass out and the bleeding didn’t stop so we had to call 911. 911 had me go on the floor legs raised which allowed the bleeding to kind of stop. When I get to the ER they examine me and the bleeding is happening on and off. I also can’t pee anymore. The ER staff calls urology to try and recath me but they failed. Thanks to this I start bleeding everywhere again. They quickly move me to trauma ward where I’m bleeding all over the bed and floor. The surgical fellowship on call comes and adds some sutures while urology actually manages to caths me. I lost a lot of blood between the ER and trauma ward. After about 8 hours in the ER I get to go to recovery where they transfuse me with 4 bags of blood. Sadly over the next two nights I continue to hemorrhage hematoma’s. At this point it is Saturday morning and Dr Ting and Horesh make the call to bring me to the OR for exploratory surgery to try and find why I’m still bleeding. Unfortunately Dr Avanessian is on vacation so Dr Horresh will be performing the surgery. Luckily he’s a fantastic surgeon and does a great job. I lose more blood during surgery and I get 2 more bags of blood transfused during this time. They find some internal bleeding in my canal and add 3 stitches. Dr Horesh notes that the hematomas were between the bleed and grafts so the grafts were at risk. I spend the night in the ICU with a kinked catheter because they installed the wound vac wrong and that caused massive bladder pain because I wasn’t being emptied (I had 2L of urine in me), and then spend 1 more night in recovery where the wound vac failed and had to be removed and then I’m discharged. I then had to stew in my own fluids with packing and a compression dressing for 2 days after that before I was able to see Dr Avanessian. Sadly, as she takes my packing out my grafts come with it. She says they’re all nonviable and dead and cuts them out at this point. She tells me it’s unfortunate but should not impact my recovery.

At this point I’m doing pretty well. Dilation is going well (I’m on green) and pain is manageable. I have some separation on my left labia I’m concerned about and I’m concerned for the future of my canal but I’m cautiously optimistic that the worst is behind me. Just figured it’d be good to share my complication story. If anyone has questions I’m happy to answer them.