Complication of latest surgery

I’ve been struggling since surgery on Dec 7, 2015, for a resection to remove a tumor that has appeared in my last scans. Everything was seemingly going well, until just short of two weeks post op when I had some sudden pain that developed right under the area of one of the laproscopic incisions. This wasn’t surface incision pain, but much deeper. It suddenly improved after a couple days and then just as suddenly got worse and stayed worse. I’m pretty tough , but I was to the point that turning even slightly and breathing caused the pain to be very intense and even sitting was very uncomfortable. My husband had to help me up from sitting or lying in bed and even often that hurt to the point of tears. I got to my GP before Christmas and she refilled my pain meds and tried a different dosing schedule….and was instructed to see her again in seversal days. That turned into a week due to the holiday and weekend followed by a bad snow storm. When I saw her again this last Tuesday, she ordered a CT which was done the next day. The results were…..the problem is a SEROMA, a collection of fluid in the empty space where tissue had been removed during surgery. This happens to be egg sized, which is why it’s hurting so much…..it’s probably pressing on nerves and who knows what else. I hadn’t heard of this before, so of course, I did some reading on line. I thought I’d add the following, in case anyone else experiences the same thing I have:

They are fairly common following surgeries where something is removed or things are moved around a lot internally. Generally, they are smaller and don’t cause problems and eventually, the body absorbs the fluid. They are similar to a blister on your skin….so the fluid is sterile…no bacterial infection involved.

So, what to do? They can be needle aspirated by an interventional radiologist , but that doesn’t always get rid of all the pain and sometimes, the fluid just fills back into the space. There are soe other things that can be done, including another surgery, but for right now, I’m in a holding pattern because I am on Lovanox, a blood thinner, and need to be off that before any more surgical procedures that could cause bleeding. I go back to Mayo Rochester on Jan 7th, for a surgical followup, so I plan to hand carry the CT scan CD with me to that appt for their opinions on what to do. I hate being on the pain meds so long, but if the thought is that it would be better to wait to see if my body would absorb the fluid I will try to tough it out with the pain meds.

I hoped for a better healing process from the resection, but in the end, I will get through whatever I have to do with this seroma and hope for no more recurrences of the cancer. At least this time, the incisions healed okay and didn’t need to be packed like after the first surgery.
Julie T.