I checked things out with a mirror this morning.  I didn't have my camera upstairs or I would have taken a picture.  All the side walls are pink and healthy, and I can see lots of granulation tissue starting to grow.  This is very good!  Also, I noticed that the smell now most closely resembles what Liam's breath smelled like in the two weeks following his adenoids coming out.  Interesting.

I had my appointment with Sparrow's Wound Clinic today.  They didn't really do much to the wound itself.  They took a picture and documented the size, which was 2cm x 3.5cm x 3cm.  The nurse reminded me to make sure I eat lots and lots of protein, to help promote healing.  I needed that reminder; I knew it somewhere, but I wasn't really following it.  Then they just repacked it as before.

After I pestered her a bit, the nurse said that her opinion of the odor was that it was a healing smell.  She said that large wounds like this actually do produce a certain odor when they are healing, and that it didn't smell infected to her at all.  That explains why it smells like Liam did, and makes me feel even better.

I have another appointment with them for next Monday, because Dr. Livingston's associate wants to take a look at it himself.  Also, they have put in for insurance approval for a VAC device.  They need to wait until the insurance approves it before using it, and that may take up to two weeks.  So still waiting on that.

As for the VAC device, this is a very interesting treatment and has me pretty excited.  VAC stands for Vacuum Assisted Closure.  After I do some more research, I'll post some links for further information on this, but here is what I have learned so far from a brief search.  A foam sponge is inserted into the wound, and a perforated drain is inserted into the sponge.  The whole thing is then sealed with an airtight dressing.  The drain is then attached to a pump, which is programmed to apply a vacuum pressure to the wound.  I'm not sure exactly which way my treatment will go yet, but the most effective treatments I'm seeing involve a cyclical pressure, maybe five minutes on and two minutes off, with a negative pressure of 125mB below ambient.

On the negative side, I will once again have a drain to deal with, and it will be worse than before because it will be attached to this pump I'll have to carry around with me.  But, on the positive side, wounds nearly as big as mine have closed, or healed enough for suturing, in an average of 16 days or so.  That's just over two weeks, compared with a possible month.  So I say, let's do it!

All in all, this was a very good day.  For the first time since this area started to open up, I really feel optimistic about the outcome.  That's a big step; yesterday I was convincing myself I was going to die from belly rot.