UPDATE 4-7-09 - ANOTHER Bump in the Road

Our appointment today was only supposed to be for an injection into the expanders, but NOOOOO…things couldn’t possibly just go as planned. We always have to have a ‘little something’ that’s not quite as it’s supposed to be. Today’s bump was a decent one.

When Hillary began Mom’s checkup she paid particular detail to an area that Mom has been having a little trouble with in her healing. One of the incision areas on her left side hasn’t been healing properly. Mom has been paying a lot more attention to that particular area with her daily care, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. Hillary, upon inspecting the area, decided that Mom definitely had a problem in the incision. Basically, she has some rogue cells that weren’t allowing things to heal properly, and even the stitching wasn’t being absorbed as it was supposed to. Hillary said that we would definitely not be doing any expanding today because it could irritate the wound and make it larger. Hillary then explained a procedure she’d do immediately to promote healing within the wound called ‘Debridement’ which was the act of removing non-living tissue from a wound.

She did this procedure without any type of local pain relief because Mom doesn’t have too much feeling in the incision area after surgery. The whole procedure took about 10 minutes and she gave Mom a list of things to watch for, and a new appointment arrangement for the following week. Mom won’t have the regularly scheduled appointment this coming Tuesday because Dr. Tan isn’t in that day. Mom’s next appointment will be next Wednesday so that Dr. Tan can inspect the incision to see how it’s healing and decide when it’s time to start the expansion process again.

The other treatment they offered to Mom in treating this troubled area was a prescription for a very special cream that is used typically for burn victims. The is only to use this cream on JUST the area that is affected by the bad cells and not any other area of her incision, as it could cause damage to healthy healing tissue.

Mom’s appointment was only about 30 minutes total. Dad stayed with her while Ruby, Fuzzy and I roamed around the gardens and pond area. Before leaving the hospital grounds, Dad delivered fresh Avocados and Oranges from our ranch to each of Mom’s doctors as a little ‘Thank You’ for their excellent care.