KNOCK ME OUT!

TODAY FINDS US  FACING YET ANOTHER SURGERY- THIS TIME TO REPAIR!  Oddly enough though, we left the plastic surgeon this morning feeling positive and thanking God for a relatively good report.  I'll back up.  I woke up Sunday morning about to get ready for church when I discovered that my left original incision had split open.  I know, I know, you're all grabbing your chest right now.  Believe me, I did too!  Kenny was almost out the door with his coffee to go teach Sunday School, when our world stopped once again.  Obviously the small "crack" from earlier opened up during the night.  After possibly getting two surgeons out of bed via answering services, I was told to cover it, keep it sterile and come see my plastic surgeon in the morning.  He would then decide how to proceed.

Sunday was a long day waiting and trying not to move the left arm too much and make it worse.  It gave me such the "ebee-jebees"!  I know going into the medical profession I've seen much worse even in my first year of clinicals, but there's something about it being your own body.  We enjoyed the company of good friends in the evening which helped get my mind off of my open chest until I could go to bed.  And my sweet sister brought me brownies.

So we headed to Tampa once again this morning to see our plastic surgeon.  I was very nervous about what he would say once he saw it, and also quite afraid to hear one of those now common phrases like ..."this might be uncomfortable" after he removed bandages.  We had been told by him early on, if there was ever any signs of infection during the months of the tissue expander process, he would have to go back in, take them out, wait until chemo was all done, then start from scratch.

The sermon on the radio going down to Tampa was talking about COURAGE, which is exactly what I needed to hear.  I prayed under my breath as we waited once again in that quiet room for the door to open.  (Kenny's right - they really DO need to pipe some music in there to take the pressure off).  I just spoke the name of Jesus over and over under my breath.  The surgeon came into the room with my recent nickname of "trouble" he assigned to me last week.  I told him straight up that I was almost nauseas over this as he laid my chair back.  THANKFULLY, his first words were that this didn't look too bad to him.  It didn't appear to have signs of infection.  Contaminated, but not infected at this point, and he felt he'd be able to spare the expanders at this stage.  PRAISE THE LORD!  But, he would have to fix this and would, of course, want to do it in the O.R. and that I would want to be under anesthesia for it.  NO PROBLEM THERE, BUDDY!

So, back down to Tampa Outpatient Surgery Center by 6:15 am tomorrow where he'll open it up, clean and wash it out, check all around, then sew me back up.  Oh, and did I mention - KNOCK ME OUT FIRST?  We should be back home after lunch, and I DO plan to be at the Walk Saturday, in a chair maybe, but definitely there!