I got some SLEEP!!!

 Today marks 1 week that I have been home.  Since Monday I have been dealing with the fact that my incision leaks.  This is not a problem, but it is really annoying.   Last night a friend of ours, who used to be a nurse (Renee Soulsman) came over and gave Deb and I some things to try.   The main one was focused on getting me better sleeps.  She suggested that on my bed, I should lay down a garbage bag, covered by a beach towel, and on top of that my absorbent towel.  As a dressing to my stomach, she suggested a larger, thicker, more absorbent pad.  Deb went to the store and found these.  So last night, I built my little sandwich of pads, bags, and towels, then went to sleep.   Well, it worked.   By having all those layers, I could relax and sleep and not worry that I was going to leak and destroy the bedding.  I was able to solidly fall asleep and slept 2 ½ hours, until I had to get up and pee.   But at that point, even though the new dressing was quite wet, it was still attached and not leaking.  So I went right back to sleep and slept another 2 ½ hours, until I had to get up and pee.  Again, the pad was saturated, but was not leaking out the tape, and if it did, I had 2 absorption layers between me and the bed to catch it.  So, I was able to fall asleep a THIRD time.  Again about 2 hours later I woke up.   At this point I was rested enough, so gathered all my towels, threw that in the laundry, so they can be ready to do battle tonight.   At 6:30 AM now, I am sitting at my desk typing this, with a towel under my shirt to catch the leakage.  I will start the every 2 hours “change the dressing” routine at 8 this morning.    It feels great to have had a relative restful night of sleep.