My stoma site has not closed completely (takedown was Oct. 24) & now has some fatty tissue poking through the hole. I do not have access to a dr. where I live. I did see a nurse practioner today & she will contact my dr. in Cleveland tomorrow. She thinks I need to have the fatty tissue clipped out and the area around the hole needs to be cleaned up so they will eventually come together. My questions is, is this something I can feel ok about having her do in the clinic or is this something I should only let a dr. do? If something goes wrong I can't get to a hospital w/o being medivaced out. Also, I won't be able to leave the village until March 21 when I go to New Orleans. Will it be ok to wait that long? My other option is to wait until I return to Fairbanks around April 17 to see a surgeon who knows a little about my history since my surgeries. I am a little worried about waiting although the nurse practioner assures me it will be ok to wait until March or April. She doesn't think this is an emergency situation & gave me some Bactrin (?) to keep the area moist & covered with gauze. She also says as long as it doesn't get infected there's nothing to worry about. Any advice as to what I should do? Wait or not? Trust the nurse practioner can fix this or not? I just don't know what to think or do about this!! Any help on what I should do would be greatly appreciated!!!

Sounds like you ahve a little over-granulation going on. It's perfectly harmless but will stop the top layer of your skin closing over if you don't get it attended to.

My stoma nurse is also a wound care nurse and when I had some over-granulation around my stoma she used some silver nitrate to burn off the excess tissue. It doesn't hurt because there are no nerve endings in that sort of tissue.

I trust my nurse implicably, but then she also happens to be a very good friend of mine so I already knew that she was very good at her job.

Good luck.

Shell

Talked with Dr. Stocchi & he tells me I need to have this fat cut out & the area explored for possible tunneling. Lord, I hope there isn't any tunneling going on!! Since we don't have a dr. here & not sure I want to trust the nurse practioner to do it I will wait until I go to New Orleans in 2.5 weeks. Hopefully someone there will be willing to do this for me.