Matt Guthrie 
Stephen Hayes expected it would be a routine procedure — have an area of skin cancer removed from his scalp and go on with his life.
The Marion resident could not know that he was starting a four-year odyssey caused by that four-inch square section of missing skin.
“I was just unlucky, I guess,” he says.
Unlucky
When the wound from his 2014 cancer surgery refused to heal, Stephen had surgery to close the wound with a skin graft. However, his radiation treatments destroyed the skin graft and compromised the circulation in his scalp so that a second procedure also failed.
That is when Stephen sought help at the Southcoast Health Wound Care Center at Charlton Memorial Hospital.
Southcoast Health’s Wound Care Center, which also has a St. Luke’s Hospital location, uses an evidence-based approach to care for chronic wounds. The center is affiliated with Healogics Inc., the nation’s largest advanced wound care management company, which has a vast database of treatments for non-healing surgical wounds like Stephen’s, as well as diabetic ulcers, pressure ulcers and other chronic wounds.
Changing his luck
Stephen started treatment in the summer of 2016 with a weekly cleaning of his wound, called debridement.
“We are very aggressive in the beginning,” says Cheryl Thompson, Southcoast Health Wound Care Center’s program director. “We remove bacteria and dead tissue and prepare the wound bed for healing. Some patients have had their wound for months or even years, and this intervention reverts the wound back to an acute state so it can respond to our wound care regimen.”
A physician specialist in wound care helps each patient develop a treatment plan, which could involve diabetes management, education on avoiding wounds or a vascular referral for circulation problems.
Stephen’s treatment involved the hyperbaric chamber, which increases oxygen in the body to promote healing. Five days a week for eight weeks, he would arrive at 7:30 a.m., change into scrubs and lie down in a glass tube where the air pressure is slowly raised to about two to three times normal pressure.
“They call it diving,” Stephen says.
In fact, Wound Care Center staff follow the principles of care established by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society. “At that level of pressure, the lungs are breathing 100 percent oxygen, compared to just 21 percent in normal air pressure,” Thompson says.
Stephen was back in street clothes and leaving for work by 10:30 a.m.
He completed his treatment in November 2016, and the following month he had surgery to close his wound with a skin graft and re-establish circulation.
“I couldn’t have had that operation without the care at the Southcoast Health Wound Care Center,” Stephen says. “They do a great job there. I am finally back to normal.”
Learn more about the Southcoast Health Wound Care Center.
