Home Tissue Expansions Coming Along

Since I've got a great and considerate burn doctor, he didn't want us to worry about driving down to Portland every week through the winter and bad roads to get my expander filled, he taught my mom how to fill it at my post op appointment in December after my last surgery.  So every Saturday we've been filling the expander with 80cc's.  So far we've done four (or five?) expansions and it's starting to get really big and really noticeable.  Not to mention, painful.  When it first gets expanded and intermittently in the days afterward, it feels like a migraine in my shoulder/neck.  Despite her hesitancy to do it this way, my mother does a great job.  Actually, it's like a team effort between her and my dad.  Since the saline solution is so hard to draw into the gigantic syringe, my dad draws it out and injects the solution into my expander while my mom handles the needle and sticking it into the port.  I do not look forward to Saturday's.  I have an appointment with my doctor on January 17th so he can see how it's coming along.  I'm sure we'll have many more weeks to go with expansions.  He wants this thing big so he has lots of skin to work with.  Ugh....