"fills" are finished

Last Friday morning I was able to do the last "fill" that needed to be done at home. The infection had cleared and was healing over well. On Wednesday I had a follow-up with my Dr. in Chapel Hill. After consulting with her on the size I currently was we decided to add saline for my overfill. With tissue expanders the final fill has to be 10% more than what you want your final size to be. This gives the skin an extra stretch to allow the surgeon room to work. So up to this point everything has gone well and I thought was putting us back on track. However, after we decided to add the extra 10% of saline the Dr. felt like my skin was tighter than she would like for it to be and she didn't feel comfortable scheduling surgery as soon as I had hoped. In the long run I know it will make for a better result but I sure was hoping to have this done by the end of this month. So her decision is to see me back in four weeks and she is hoping to schedule surgery in about six weeks. This would put surgery the end of September. About a month later than I thought, but after everything that I've been through I certainly want to make sure this process goes as well as it possibly can.

One highlight of my trip to Chapel Hill was that Stewart and I got to meet another couple that is getting ready to go through the expansion process. The Dr. asked us if we would mind speaking with them about our experience with doing "fills" at home. Great feeling to know that you can use your experiences to help other people make better decisions.

My girls have only a week left before they go back to school. One starting Middle School and one starting Kindergarten. Wow! How time has flown! Mom is sure not looking forward to this milestone!

Won't be much to update until I go back to see the Dr. on Sept. 12 so I probably won't post again until I get back from that appt. Hope everyone has a great rest of summer break and fingers crossed that all the storms stay out in the ocean!!

a few steps back

A quick update on how things have been going. Over last weekend I had a blister pop up on the end of one of my incision scars. By the time I got to the Dr. on Monday the blister had popped but it still looked red and swollen. Of course, it is an infection :(  Yes, this puts me a few steps back because it puts "fills" on hold for now. Yesterday would have been my last fill, so I'm a little disappointed to have made it this far and now have to wait and see how this heals. So far I have only seen my local Dr. I have complete confidence that he can treat me. My doctors in Chapel Hill are not completely satisfied with not seeing what's going on but for now I think it would be a wasted trip if the meds I'm on take care of this and I get back on the right track. So far I haven't seen improvement but I feel like it could take the meds a few days to really start to make a difference, so I'm going to give it over the weekend and see how it looks on Monday. Keeping my positive attitude and planning for things to be looking much better by Monday and I plan to complete my last "fill" on Thursday of next week. If all goes well my pre-op appt. in Chapel Hill should be on Wed. August 15th and surgery should fall the end of August.

Hope everyone has a blessed weekend!! Please keep me in your prayers!!