So the final verdict.... Surgery April 19th!
After reviewing my current state, he decided that the right side had settled so the left side was bigger (remember the left side was overfilled more due to my crumpled rib cage). So unfortunately I had to get POKED today to take 35 cc's out of the left expander. And can I just say that now that my feeling is back it hurt! It's a good thing when I did the expansion that I didn't have much feeling or I never would have gotten to this size! So after removing some fluid we now have a plan! (And for those of you who haven't figured me out yet, I'm a planner and like to know what is going on!)
So.... Drum roll please...
The BIG Plan:
- Use a 1-2 inch incision (on the current incision lines) to take out the expanders and replace them with silicone gel implants.
- The gel implants will be 275-300cc's (based on the size of the right one, the left one will be a bigger implant to match the size and fill the crumpled rib cage issue) {I'm at 325 on the right now so they will be a pretty comparable size but will be more natural looking and soft, unlike the rock hard expanders}.
- Use fat grafting to fill in the gap above the implant on the left (maybe the right depending how it sits). The right one right now looks fine because I have a normal muscle on that side, the left side is basically flat on top and then the defined expander (not a nice normal slope). Ummm fat grafting? what? I don't exactly have a lot of options for fat collection! So they basically are going to do liposuction on my "flank" (or lower back, you know the back of the muffin top! except that I dont have a muffin top!). And then take that fat and inject it to fill the gap. He did give me the option to do the exchange and do the fat grafting later but I'd rather just do it all at once which is what he recommended as well.
- Hyperbaric...still up in the air. We'll wait until surgery to decide and will see how everything looks during surgery and the morning after and then will do hyperbaric if anything looks iffy at all to prevent issues from occuring.
- Surgery will be day surgery with the possibility of staying overnight if he thinks hyperbaric is needed right away otherwise I'll go home and go back the next morning.
So there it is! One month and I'll be hopefully done with most of this!
So now the frenzy begins... I'll be cleaning, organizing, and cooking up a storm to freeze a ton of meals again. That made life so much easier last time. I'll be figuring out Jareds schedule and when we may need a babysitter to help. And getting things at work in order for my coworkers.
This surgery should be much easier. Liposuction is painful and most likely will hurt more than the rest of the surgery so I'm not looking forward to that. I'll be taking 2-4 weeks off work depending how it goes.
On a heartbreaking note, AJ was sitting in the room while I was talking to Jared and she asked why someone would help with the kids and I had told her that I was having surgery and she was near tears and said she doesn't want me to go away again and doesn't want to not be able to do fun stuff since I will hurt... poor thing. We talked about how this would be different than last time and that we would still have the whole summer to do fun things. Who knew a 4 year old would process, remember, and be so worried. So we are working through that. I am going to take the day off before surgery to go do a mommy Addy day like I did last time. She seemed pleased with that.
And so let the frenzi begin!
