A family friend back in Texas is a massage therapist, and after talking to my mother about me yesterday morning recommended that I look into getting massage therapy to help this hole heal.  What she said was that the poor healing can be due to decreased blood flow, which, of course, matches what the doctor said; the blood supply is lowered because the skin was lifted up in a flap, and the blood vessels running up from below were severed.  She also said that the lack of sensation in the area meant that there are no messages coming from the nerves to the brain saying, "Send more blood here!"  So massage therapy could help increase the blood flow as well as wake up some of those nerve endings.

So I went to see a massage therapist last night.  I only scheduled a half-hour, just to see how things went, but she kept going for an hour and a half.  She also said everybody was jealous that she had gotten me, because they don't often get hard stuff like this to work on.  Now I know how Brian feels sometimes!

She went through a good number of exercises and techniques to use.  A lot of what she did involved stretching the fascia, which is the tough connective tissue under the skin that holds all your organs in.  She wanted to stretch this out to release tension on the wound, so that it wouldn't be getting pulled open further.  Two main areas were pulling the skin above my hips toward my lower abdomen, and pushing up on the front of my thighs.  This is something I will need to show Brian how to do to me.

The second thing she showed me was how to work the scars that have already healed.  If you massage and work with a scar early on, before it completely hardens, you can make it softer and smoother, and keep it from adhering to the surrounding tissues.  This makes it more comfortable long term.  So I'm to start now working with the areas that have already healed, like my bellybutton, hips, and upper stomach muscles.  I just basically play with the scars, look for tight or sticky spots and try to massage them out, roll the scar itself between my fingers to soften, things like that.  I also rub little circles all over my belly to help stimulate blood and lymph circulation.

The last thing she showed me was energy work.  This involves placing my hands over the hole and visualizing healing energy flowing into the area, and visualizing the wound closing and healing itself.  Pure imagery, but a more direct approach than I have tried before, so I will work that into my meditations.

After all of that, I actually did feel better, both last night and this morning.  I sort of expected to be a little sore and my drain output to go up a little, but neither happened.  Instead, I have increased sensation, along with decreased sensitivity, in my entire abdomen.  I also have some increased sensation in the hole itself, but not any real pain or discomfort; it's more like an awareness, I guess.  At any rate, I feel better, and you know, I think the hole had a little less yellow gunk in it this morning, too.

I've already made an appointment to get my drain out tomorrow.  Unless it suddenly shoots up today, I'll be good to go, finally.  I will feel so much better with the drain out.  I think I'll be able to wear pants again, although I'll check with the doctor first to be sure.  I'm so excited!