wound care

Last week I was given the pleasure of witnessing a wound change. It was really quite strange. The patient is a frequent visitor to the hospital - she has been on home TPN and has a very large abdominal wound. The wound care nurse was so excited about the improvement in this woman's wound - it was 7-8 inches in length and about 3-4 inches wide and 1/2 inch deep into the abdomen (yikes!). I'm still somewhat confused as to how she acquired this wound. It looked to be really painful, but the patient said that she doesn't really notice it. It seems to have come from a GI surgery that she had a few months back, but I still can't imagine how it could have gotten so large. Anyway, I have never seen a wound vac before, but the collection of deposits were pretty grotesque after 2-3 days of suction - blood and some other brownish liquids. The patient couldn't tell that the wound vac had been turned on after the nurse had finished up, so it sounds like it wasn't a terrible inconvenience at least!