Gross surgery photos

Yeah, they're graphic.

If they bug you - don't look!

I had my anterior cervical fusion (repair of the ruptured disc in my neck) on Thursday, 6/24.

Discharged from the hospital 6/25-

This is how the incision looks today (6/27) - lots of swelling, a little bruising, and a lot of allergic reaction to the dressings.

These are just the steri-strips ----

When I was sent up to my hospital room from the Operating Room, I had a much larger "hypoallergenic" dressing covering these strips - which the doctor and nurses swore I could not possibly have an allergic reaction to.

So when it started to itch and burn at around 6PM that night, they refused to remove it.

You can clearly see the big square red blistery reaction I am had to this dressing.

And over there on my left shoulder  (on the right in the photo)- NICE blistering from the dressing!

The nurse (it was a different nurse by now - the morning shift) actually freaked a little when she saw it when she took the dressing off to change it when they were discharging me.

Unfortunately, I couldn't talk her into just leaving the steri-strips, and she put another, different, "hypoallergenic" dressing on this mess

Which I removed as soon as I got home.

And fortunately enough, I guess, the most pain I'm having is from the dumb allergic reactions. I am also madly itching under these steri-strips, so I know there will be a hot mess under there when they come off a week from tomorrow.