The wound VAC is a device that uses negative pressure to promote healing in the open area. It is used by forming an airtight seal over the area and "sucking" all the drainage out and pulling new tissue to the top. There is no pain at all during this process. The painful part is getting the seal and the dreaded sponge!! I was prescribed a nurse to come into my home and do the initial dressing and further dressing changes. The first visit was my nurse and a KCI representative. They were both RN's and had at one time worked in a hospital setting. I felt so confident that this was going to work! The nurse, who I will call Nurse X, first measured the wound and made sure it was clean inside. I had an antibiotic wash that had to be put into the wound prior to placing the sponge in it. The antibiotic wash was painless but it had to be refrigerated so it was cold! So after she did that she measured the sponge and cut out apiece just big enough to fit inside and keep the top from closing. This was painful and remained painful up until the end! The sponge they use is an actual sponge! You can use it to wash your dishes or clean your toilet after they use the part they need. So this sponge is put into the open wound and another sponge is cut to place over the wound to keep the seal from tugging too much on the opening. Then the tube is put on; this is the easiest part of the whole process. It is about a two foot long piece of tubing that is connected to a sticky round part that attaches to the skin over the wound. Then the fun part, the tack-a-derm. This is used to make the airtight seal necessary for suction. Because of where my opening was, right above my rectum, this made getting the seal very difficult. 

So I ended up having to go to my surgeon's office the next day and having him put the machine on. I also had to get more stitches to make the opening smaller. So now I have this machine on me. It weighs about 20 pounds and is carry-able. I had the VAC Freedom. There are other types but I don't know about them. So for almost 2 months I had to carry around this 20 black bag! It wasn't fun but my arms are a lot stronger now! I had a scheduled dressing change every 3 days. The first time Nurse X came over after the machine was on I had taken 2 pain pills, morphine because of the pain in putting it on, about 45 minutes before she got there. She arrived and took the tack-a-derm off, felt like a lot of tape being pulled off your backside then she tried to get out the sponge. I say tried because every time she pulled or even touched it I jumped! It hurt so badly; I can't even describe it. Even on that much pain medicine I was hurting. Nurse X decided to call my surgeon and I had to go see him to get the dressing changed. Lucky me, they knocked me out for the next 3 dressing changes. I went into an Urgent Care center where my doctor worked and they gave me a sedative to put me under. I don't remember anything about those dressing changes.

The fourth one I went in and they only knocked me out enough to be in La-La land. I don't remember much but my surgeon told me that during the change I was laughing and talking about going on vacation. The funniest part was when he told me that he asked me to count back from 100 and I started at "Z"! So back to my story, my surgeon felt that I had healed enough to get the sponge out without as much pain as before. I was instructed to get into the tub about an hour or so before the nurse got there to loosen up the sponge. So three days later I was sitting in a nice hot tub, reading a book and eating breakfast! Nurse X got there as I was getting out and we did the dressing change in just over an hour. Not bad considering it was the first time she had seen me in a few weeks! After that I did the same thing sat in the tub for about an hour and a half and the dressing change wasn't too bad. After about 4 weeks my nurse left the home health provider she was with and I had another nurse. It was back to square one! This nurse first put too much tack-a-derm on and it pulled all the hair on my leg out, then she would put it too low and I was unable to have a bowel movement! Let's just say that I was able to train her the way it was supposed to be and everything was okay from then on out!

 After seeing her for almost another month I was healed to the point that I could pull the sponge out by myself in the tub. I had also started back to work August 1 and had to schedule these changes before work. It was difficult because according to my insurance I had to be homebound in order to keep the home nurse so we never told my nurse I was back to work! Finally, on August 25, two days before my birthday, the nurse came over and when she saw the size of the opening she called my surgeon and said it was too small for a sponge to go in! My surgeon agreed and said to just put some Panafil on it to keep the area clean. I was ecstatic!! It had been 3 years and 5 surgeries but I was the closest to being totally healed I had ever been! My mom put the Panafil on every day and after 3 weeks the area closed up totally. I have now been closed for 2 weeks and I have not had to wear a pad for one full week and counting! I have started to exercise to make sure the skin does not split open again and I have also really started to eat right. I would tell anyone who is facing this surgery or the usage of a wound VAC to do it. Although it was painful and a long recovery process it has changed my life. The wound VAC was the best thing that has ever happened to me and I am thankful everyday that I had it and I am now on the road to a full recovery!