Doctor Appt 9/16/10 and feeling great!

I can't describe to you how INCREDIBLE my new neck feels! I mean, it's been 3 weeks and there has been no sign of contracting. I can still look all the way up to the ceiling and sky without feeling tight from a growing contracture. I just love tilting my head back and looking up and im not even stretching it to the max! The skin is so pliable and supple.


I saw the doctor last Thursday and here's the deal. There is, unfortunately, a contracture on the right side of my neck, this contracture, however, is not interferring with the center of my neck which was just done. But instead of the doc just saying, "deal with it," more or less, he is going to use the tissue expander on the right side of my scapula (back of my shoulder) that he left in and for good reason as we know now, and expand it AGAIN to do ANOTHER flap. Only this time it won't be as major as this last one. What he is going to do is do exactly what he did when he did the flaps on the side of my neck. So he'll expand that right expander and once it's big enough, then he'll make a cut, or a slit if youw ill, and pull all that extra skin up and over (after removing the contracture of course). So I feel so very lucky to have a doctor that is dedicated to making me functional and mobile and as much as to how i used to look as he can. Next after that will be working on my lip and eye, then my arms and elbows and some dermabrasion on my face. So that's the next steps. We're starting expanding all over again. When I was there he did some expansion on me already. so back to making weekly Portland trips.

My leg is healing well on the other hand thought it is still quite the open wound and is still hard for me to get around without assistance like a walker or cane. I have begun to get around on the cane a little bit now though! I'm a little wobbly but I'm trying. I'm pretty weak still and the doctor suspects I'll be weak for quite awhile yet. I spend most of my time either in bed or I have been able to sit out in the living room in a chair if I've got a pillow under my legs.

So in the meantime to fill up my time, I have been crazily working on my cross stitchign for this bazaar. I swear I don't think many people are working as hard on it as I am. But it's for a good cause so I'm okay with workign hard at it I guess. My reading has been put on the wayside because of it though, which I'm not very happy about. I'm just gonna have to set aside my cross stitching for a little while each day and get some reading in.

Anyway, I feel GREAT GREAT GREAT with this new neck! And it looks fantastic too! Unfortunately, it left quite a deformity in my leg but that's the price I had to pay in order to have a mobile neck. My whole body is a patchwork quilt. it's gonna be hard to find somebody to love me with all my patchwork and scars.