Friday night, I came home to West Liberty from a few days of working and smoking in Iowa City. I had been smoking almost exclusively from glass bowls used only for marijuana, though on Thursday night, I shared a blunt among friends. This will have been the last blunt I'll have smoked. Though I hit but twice, I felt the negative effects of the tobacco and chemical laden paper wrap later that night and on the following days. I have quit smoking cigarettes about three weeks prior.
I will be smoking exclusively marijuana from now forward, including resin. This excludes shisha and hand rolled cigarettes and spliffs, however, I will only be using tobacco that is as far as I can tell without additive chemicals. I will no longer smoke a spliff if it has been rolled with the tobacco from a cigarette. The health benefits of the marijuana smoke are outweighed by the negative effects of the additives from most tobacco products.
The purpose for this blog is to illustrate the effects of smoking marijuana on my wound.
The wound is diagnosed as a perianal (near the anus) abscess (pocket of pus), and has previously been diagnosed as a fistula (tract of infection connecting two internal or external surfaces, in this case the internal rectum and external skin). During the original surgery and subsequent surgeries in the following years, the site was cut open and drained of pus, packed with gauze, and I wore pads or adult diapers to absorb the blood in the days following. Then, when the site "healed," it slowly seeped pus and/or blood, flowing remarkably more heavily during times when I was sick with phlegm or diarrhea, or times of heightened stress.
I had showered and taken an epsom salt bath soak prior to shaving around my surgical site. This is a wound I have had for over ten years, and has been draining blood and pus since it was first opened while I was in high school, and re-opened to drain after sealing and gaining pressure several times since. I have been told by a surgeon and a wound care specialist that this wound will never heal and that I am doing the best I can by keeping it clean and using sterile pads which need to be changed up to dozens of times per day if the site is draining.
As you can see, the wound is mostly closed. The scar looks like a fold to the left of the anal opening. This is directly after cleaning, soaking, drying, and shaving.
The next morning, the pad was soaked, which you can't really see in the photo, but the solids deposited are obvious.
Some swelling can be seen. This photo was taken directly after removing the pad. Skin tags can also be seen near the anal opening, a condition that developed with Crohn's Dis-ease.
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