@Scott F posted:One very big scar, straight down the middle for my J-pouch surgery. I have other scars from other surgeries, but nothing else quite so monumental.
I have the same, the result of old fashioned style surgery in which I was cut open like a suckling pig from bottom of rib cage to about 1 inch above the base of penis and the wound was closed with around 50 metal staples. It's faded tremendously over the years and is now barely noticeable. I also have the concave scar from the temporary ileo which was allowed to heal by granulation. I also have my thyroid cancer surgery scar on my neck, which is barely noticeable. After looking at the pics of scars posted on the thyroid cancer support board, I would say I am in the top 10% on thyroid surgery scars, but maybe the bottom 25% on colectomy scars and the bottom 10% on ileostomy granulation scars. My ENT surgeon did a very good job with that neck scar. Based on my colectomy scar I was expecting it to be worse, but it's a much smaller incision.
I took a deposition of a woman years ago who had a cervical fusion surgery after a car accident caused by my client. They go through the front of the neck on that surgery. Her scar was hideous, reminded me of Clint Eastwoo'd neck in "Hang Em High" when he walked around the movie with a scar from being hanged, but not to death- see the 1:30 mark of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUB_uqOaR8Q
When I walked into the conference room for the deposition and looked at her exposed scar, and saw she was a good looking woman around 40, I said to myself, "we are paying the policy limit on this one", and we did.
When I had the postsurgical ileus and was vomiting almost non-stop for 8 hours before getting the NG tube, they kept telling me that the vomiting was putting pressure on the staples and the wound could burst open and get infected. In fact, that is what happened. If I did not have that ileus complication I suspect my colectomy scar would be a lot better. The violent wretches from all the vomiting stretched it out, I suspect. In retrospect probably should have used the morphine pump less, but it was a live and learn situation at that time.