Hi, just a throw-out here as I think I just have to get on with it and wait out the waiting game...I am an extremely patient person as a rule but when it's anything that concerns my health, I am the most IMpatient patient you can ever imagine!!!
I suspect I may have walked a bit too far a bit too soon.
My RAPN was a week ago today. I had a little bit of puffiness around my bruising around my wounds, by the time I came out of hospital around 48 hours after surgery. However, now that I'm walking further than along a hospital corridor, and now that the bruising is turning rainbow-coloured all over, the swelling is becoming more pronounced. Yesterday I walked the furthest yet and then googling last night, I realised that walking (despite the fact they tell you to walk!!) is the very thing that exercises the blood vessels under the skin that are currently causing the bruising, and cause them to additionally swell. Me being me, I kind of went straight from walking ten mins, to walking 20 mins then 20 back without a rest in the middle!!
My question is, having now lessened my walking and doing more sitting again, the swelling hasn't suddenly gone down as quickly as it came up! So now, I'm a bit worried that I will be swollen for maybe weeks. :-(
How long do people have this swollen area around the bruising for? How long might it take to subside? Do I have to wait until the bruising subsides?, which might be a couple weeks or perhaps a wee bit longer. Or will I still be swollen even after the colour goes out of my bruising?
The bruised areas are slightly tender when I touch them. The main wound area (4-6 cms approx) is slightly itchy but not unbearably so. Some things I've googled say that the swelling from the bruising and/or the bruising should only last 5-14 days, and other things I've read say that the swelling/bruising can last 6-12 weeks or longer. And then I read things that say if you still have swelling/bruising after two weeks, to contact your GP or medical team! All this seems contradictory so I don't know what I'm supposed to go by!
In the general picture of things, it's only a minor worry, but I am wondering if I will still be bruised by the time I want or need to drive again. Even this is arbitrary, it seems. Some places say you can drive as soon as the anaesthetic wears off, i.e. 24-48 hours. At the moment, I feel too bruised to want to do so anyway. Others say you can drive after two weeks. Others say you can go back to work in 2-4 weeks but cannot drive for 6 weeks! (If I cannot drive, I have no way of getting to work even if I could or wanted to!)
I am well stocked up but am probably going to have to drive around the 3-week post surgery mark, as I will have run out of food by then. I am five miles from the nearest town supermarket and two miles from the nearest shop that sells a very small selection of meat and veg (at a price!) The seatbelt will go over my left side which is the unoperated side luckily. But now, a week in and swollen bruised belly, I'm wondering if there's any hope the bruising and swelling may have gone down a bit by two weeks from now?
How long have others had their bruising and/or swelling for?
I know we are all different but maybe I can piece together some answers for me, from the experiences of several of you?
I am due to be in France in 9 weeks so I hope this resolves itself before then!! I updated elsewhere on another thread, I think, as I went back to the doc on Monday. She suggested it might be a bacterial infection and gave me antibiotic cream and body wash, and implied it should be loads better in 7-10 days. So I still don't know if it was allergy, infection, or a bit of both but I still trace it back to the surgical glue they put on me!! (The glue wouldn't fall off for three weeks and the nurse had to take it off last Tuesday, but already there was a rash showing around the edges of the glue from about day five.)
I think if this is the worst I will get, I've been very fortunate. I seemed to heal quicker and with fewer problems after my hysterectomy (allergy stopped then, as soon as I took the dressings off) so this has knocked me a bit but yes I will get there!
So sorry you have had so many months of pain and fluid retention. 
I have to try counting my blessings as I have dodged a very large bullet and my lesion was early stage T1a and all out, all clear, and all I have to do now is heal.
