We had our first surgery lecture today. It was pretty boring, learning about wounds and sutures. Up until.........the doctor showed us a patient with a deformed hand caused by keloids had reconstructive surgery to make his hand look normal. This required a massive skin graft. Warning to those who might get queasy (yes, LR, that means you!).
The way they did the graft was to remove the skin on his hand up past his wrist (about midway up) and then lifted up the skin on the patients stomach and placed the hand under the stomach skin. Another graft was placed on the stomach to cover open areas. But the hand remained attached to the stomach!! It was then covered in some sort of cast or wrapping (not exactly clear on that part). During the recovery process the patient reported that maggots were in the cast/wrapping and were itchy. The doctor said this wasn't a problem, because the maggots will eat up the debris (actually a benefical thing!). The doctor also mentioned that you can't get maggots under normal circumstances but once they are there, its ok. After 6 or so weeks the cast/wrapping was removed and the hand cut off of the stomach and it looked realtively normal. I am not clear on when this procedure was done, but I presume a LONG time ago and probably in Thailand (our lecuturer spend 7 years there around the time of the Vietnam War). The poor patient. I don't think I could handle maggots living on me much less my arm grafted to my stomach!
2 comments:
Facinating! I wouldn't like the smell! Remember honey in wound dressing... anecdotal evidence shows it reduces keloid scarring and speeds healing. They're making dried honey bandages now. Love, you Mom
dropping by and shocked more by the grafting to the stomach than the maggots. Gosh. Learn something new every day.
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