Open Abdominal Wound

So today I had a patient who was admitted with a bowel obstruction. My patient currently has Diverticulitis as well which together can create serious problems. For those who don't know what Diverticulitis is; it is a condition involving the diverticula (pouches in the walls) in the intestines. These pouches can become inflamed or infected. For my patient, they became infected....So they opened him up from just above the navel all the way to just above his bladder (basically right down his abdominal muscle line). They removed some of his intestine and created an ostomy temporarily so the bowel could heal before they opened him up again to continue to repair his digestive system.

I was able to work with my patient who was in between the two surgeries. They decided to leave the wound semi-open because they were going to open up the same area in surgery in a few months. The wound was about 1 1/2 inches deep and you could see the stitches connecting the lowest layer of the tissue. So my wound; about 18 inches long, 1 1/2 inches deep and about 3 inches wide. Ohh my goodness! :)

My nurse came up to me and told me to do the wound care on this patient; basically replace the old bandages. She told me up front, you need to keep a straight face, show no emotion when you look at the wound. I did very well :)

So I put on sterile gloves and packed the wound with soaked sterile saline gauze. Then I placed two Abd bandages along with soft tape. The Patient had no pain or tenderness as I was bandaging the wound. I'm so grateful that I got to perform that skill!

Now my patient will go back into surgery in 3 months and reverse the colostomy and completely close the wound. Yay for recovery!