Just to be Clear

I just wanted to explain a little more about my abscess and its various connections and complications. It's obvious to me what's going on but I thought I would take this opportunity to recap for all of you that are a little confused as to what this all means.

The original abscess was located between my colon and tail bone. We thought it was an isolated infection that originated from the original colorectal surgery I had 16 months ago. But after a bunch of tests and 6 months of elapsed time, we discovered that the abscess was connected to my colon via a small sinuous tract (this was not good). This meant that bacteria from my colon could get into the abscess preventing healing and causing ongoing infections. With a drain in the abscess, bacteria was constantly being carried out of the abscess thus no large infection could form. But with no drain in place (I had my drain removed at the end of February), there was no way to keep the bacteria moving out of the abscess so of course it became infected again. In order to rid the abscess of infection again another drain was placed. I'm not sure how but after the new drain was placed it became obvious that a new connection to my small bowel had been established (this is definitely not good). While the small bowel does not contain the abundant natural bacterial flora that the large intestine does, it's still not a good thing to have a hole in your small intestine. So now, here I am with an infected abscess that is connected to both my colon and small bowel. It's not a life threatening thing but the likelihood of this abscess healing itself with all that bad bacteria in there is very slim. The most likely solution will be surgery but I will wait to see what Dr Buie suggests early this week when I talk to him. I hope this helps you understand what's going on with the drain, abscess and all the related connections.