Hi internet. This is Christina the AmputeeOT
in my last video I explained that I needed to have a minor surgery on my residual limb
in order to remove some excess fat and skin that was on the end of my residual limb
to make it easier for me to use my prosthesis.
I had that surgery about five days ago and this video is about the wound back that they put on my residual limb.
Thankfully since they weren't operating on any of my muscles or bones just skin and fat the pain was relatively minor.
I used some pain pills for a couple of days
but now I'm not using any pain pills or any kind of pain control whatsoever.
When I woke up from surgery the surgeon explained that they put a wound vac on my residual limb
that would aid in healing of my scar tissue.
I don't typically have any issues with healing wounds and I don't think that this wound will
be any exception. So to be honest I'm not a hundred percent sure why they chose to put a
wound vac on my residual limb but I assume it's to promote an even better outcome for healing.
So you're probably wondering what a wound vac is, I will show you.
It's inside my fanny pack
This is the actual vacuum, it's battery-powered, it's called the Prevena Plus 125,
and you can see that it's got a tube here that is going down to my residual limb
and then
there is a dressing over my residual limb
that is purple.
This purple part right here is actually foam and what the vacuum pump does
is it sucks all of the air out and puts the wound under negative pressure
which promotes healing and so it compresses this foam all down
and then any type of drainage that comes out of my residual limb goes into the vacuum pump.
Inside the vacuum pump, they have some moisture-absorbing granules
and so I'm going to turn around the vacuum pump and show you the other side
you'll see that there's some moisture-absorbing granules in there
and there's some fluid in there that's kind of red and might be disgusting for some people so just FYI.
So there's the fluid that's drained.
and the absorbent granules inside the back of the pump.
I have to wear this pump for a week and then after a week, they will take it off.
You can see on here that there are seven dots
on this little display here and those seven dots correspond to the days that are remaining
that you have to wear the pump. So you can see that there are two dots left which means I have
two days left of wearing this pump before I get to take it off.
Over here is a battery display.
So it shows how much battery you have.
It plugs in right there.
This display is in case you have a leak,
a vacuum leak,
and this display is in case you have a blockage, a vacuum blockage.
This here is the alarm and you can mute that
and you can also press this to turn it off
and turn it back on.
This pump does make a small noise as it's pumping.
So I'm going to hold it up to the microphone and maybe you'll be able to hear it through the microphone.
(quite pump noise)
The noise that it makes is not very loud but I can hear it even though I'm deaf and I wear hearing aids.
And the dressings that I have to wear on my residual limb are kind of annoying and itchy
and sort of tight because they don't stretch like my regular skin
so I really can't wait to take this thing off.
One of the other issues is that you can't really take a bath with it
you can shower but you can't really soak yourself in a tub with it
uh which is something I found out when I tried to soak myself in the tub with it and then I got a vacuum leak
but thankfully they gave me some of the extra adhesive covering so I just fixed the vacuum leak myself.
And you should be able to see here
the fluid moving through the tube.
So as the vacuum pump pumps, it sucks the fluid
that comes from your wound, out and into the vacuum pump.
Okay I don't know what I did
but it's sucking continuously
at the moment.
It must have caused a leak somehow.
Oh crap....
Oh...
it did.
There's a leak somewhere.
All right. So now that I've accidentally caused a leak in the system
you can see
there's a little indicator light
showing that there's a leak in the system.
Awesome.
(Beep Beep)
Well that's great.
I wasn't even doing anything.
When I got a leak before it was all up in my groin.
So I'm going to press up in my groin and see if it seals it back again .
I don't really see where the leak even could be...
it doesn't do anything...
(Beep Beep)
Why does this always happen to me?
Okay, that's all. Thanks for watching.
Bye.
Well if I press this button here then it silences the beeping alarm
but it still obviously is making a lot of noise.
pshh
(Click)
Probably I'm gonna have to call them and ask what to do.
I could just turn it off
but then it wouldn't be doing anything so like what's the point?
(on phone)to speak with the nurse during normal business hours please hang up and dial...
I'm calling because I've got this Prevena Plus 125 therapy unit
and it has I've got like two more days left on it and it's developed
a leak that I can't find.
So I'm wondering,
uh what I should do about it, or if I can just take it off
since it's only like got two more days on it.
(Hold Music)
All right so they told me I can take it off so I'm gonna go ahead and take it off .
I'm gonna be honest, I'm pretty happy I get to take it off because
I didn't really like having to
carry it around everywhere
it's pretty annoying.
gluey sticky
sticky stuff right here.
Now this entire item is disposable. It's not reusable.
So I'm going to throw the entire thing away.
Oh it's pulling on my hair!
Now the Prevena Plus has been removed.
Yay.