Surgeries # 17, 18 and 19

I am scheduled to have three operations done on December 28th. One is to put bi-lateral tissue ex-panders in along the back of my shoulders. The second is to release one of my shoulders and the third is to fix my bottom lip which was burned and scarred. This last surgery I am so excited for. I waited 18 months to get my neck surgery done and now I have waited 19 months to get this lip surgery done.

The bi-lateral tissue ex-panders are to stretch out the skin to do another release on my neck because my doctor wants to continue giving me more mobility in my neck. And he is not going to do a graft on my neck this time. Instead he is going to do what is called a "flap" where once he has the skin expanded he will wrap the skin around my neck instead of taking it off and grafting it. This keeps the blood flow intact.

I have had to go through tissue ex-panders before only before it was in my lower belly, which was unfortunate because it made me look like I had a big beer belly. lol. But now this time, being along the back of my shoulders I'm gonna look like a hunchback so I'm not really looking forward to that again but it must be done. The tissue ex-panders must be expanded for about three months and I get so tired of the waiting period from the one surgery to the next and get the ex-panders out. I have to have expansions done once every 5 days. The expansions are done by putting a large ass needle filled with 60 units of saline solution into a porthole underneath my skin and then filling up the expander. This process must be done at least three times and then I go through it all over again in 5 days so as you can imagine, the ex-panders get quite large and cause quite discomfort. I don't know what I'm going to do this time because they will be on my back and I have to sleep on my back right now with my neck AND he must graft the areas where the tissue expanders were and he's going to take that skin from my back as well.

Might I enlighten you on the pain of grafting. The graft is not what hurts. It's the donor site that hurts like hell. A donor site is where they have taken the skin to put somewhere else. They basically shave off a layer of your skin like slicing a piece of cheese off the block and it is so incredibly painful.

So with the second surgery I am going to have to go through the donor site pain because one of my doctors will be doing a release on one of my shoulders. Now a release is where they cut away the scar tissue that is limiting mobility, usually in joint areas. Right now I can't raise my right arm higher than just below 90 degrees and my left arm can raise just a tad bit higher. I have already had my right shoulder released once and it contracted back terribly due to lack of the right physical therapy. So I am hoping he will do my right shoulder again but I won't know until the day of surgery.

I will also have to go through a second graft and donor site for my lip surgery. This is going to be the most painful. Who wants their lip cut open?

So that is the latest on my surgeries and recovery. Oh boy, three operations in one day. These will be numbers 17, 18, and 19. And right after Christmas. But one of the three operations will be a great present, which is the one on my lip, as I have told you I've been waiting on my 19 months, as that is how long since my accident. Hard to believe isn't it? It's been 19 months since my accident. Next march will be the 2nd anniversary of the accident. But I don't see it as the anniversary of my accident. I see it as the 2nd anniversary of the day I lived, the second chance I got at life. But that's for another post :)