Bet you didn’t know this (June 2017) was Surgical Drainage Awareness Month. Well now you do:).
If you have had surgery, then you are probably already all too aware of surgical drainage. It’s been standard procedure for many years to insert a urinary catheter while you are on the operating table. And often, the catheter and its bag are with you well into recovery.
Of course, there are other kinds of surgical drainage than just the urinary kind. Patients also often need tubes to remove blood, pus, an other kinds of bodily fluid.
The draining of fluids is necessary for a variety of reasons. But the logistics involved cause a wide assortment of other problems. And people are usually just sent home to deal with these things on their own without much (if anything) in the way of post-op instructions or warnings.
So patients are left with a lot of questions. How do you take care of a drainage bag? Is it OK to shower with one? How do you secure them to yourself so you can put clothes on and go about your life safely and securely?
I can personally attest to the fact that there is precious little information available to people to answer questions like those above. When I came home with my catheter – after being told I’d be with it for at least 6 months – I took to the internet to find…very little. And what little I did find was often either unreliable or flat out wrong.
That is the main reason I started this site. And that is the reason for Surgical Drainage Awareness Month, started by my friend, Dr. Mario Torres-Leon.
To find out more about Surgical Drainage Awareness month, and/or to download the free toolkit to promote your own educational event, go to www.SurgicalDrainageAwareness.org.
Spread the word!
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