They did have to cut me open based on the severity of the sepsis. My liver ended up bleeding out and turned to mush. The doctors couldn't pick up the liver so they had to pack it and then hoped for the best. The incision went from the bottom of my sternum to almost my waist. When it was finally time to go home, the incision wasn't healed yet. We had wound specialist show us how to change the bandages and clean the wound. Even though I'm a huge horror movie fan, I couldn't get myself to look at the incision. It took me almost 2 weeks after being home to look at it. It seemed like we had the same amount of supplies at our house as the hospital. We did have in-home nurses for the first week or so to help with cleaning the wound and change the bandages. Once I was able to get up and move around the house under my own power, the nurses felt like their time was up. They showed us again how to change out the bandages and clean the wound. My wife was a trooper. I don't know how she kept track and stayed laser focused every time she had to clean out the incision. I couldn't even look at it, and she was right in there making sure everything looked ok. A couple times the nurses and the doctors in the hospital had to bring scissors in and cut away the dead skin. (that's a story for another day.) I love my wife to pieces!! She stayed on me every day making sure the incision was clean and forced me change my bandages. She really was the rock through this entire process. My doctors wouldn't let me get back to work until the entire incision was healed up tight. In total, I was out of work for about 3 months. In the hospital/rehab for 45 days. This gave me about another month and a half to recover and spend some quality time with the family. WARNING: The link I posted will bring you to a picture of what the incision looked like when I got home. I didn't want to post it for everyone to see because it's graphic. For me, it is part of the story.