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What I said to my son, as a parent, set the stage for his attitude about his face. My message to parents is, that usually, the attitude about life that we express to our children, they will be able to adopt also. Usually. On the way home from the hospital we stopped to get gas. He hadn't even seen his face yet, but he knew it was bad. There was a man at the gas station with one arm missing all the way up to the shoulder. Maybe part of the shoulder was gone too. My son was 7 at the time, and he asked me if his face was worse than the man with his arm missing. I quickly exclaimed, “Oh no. Not at all” I explained about how the man lived his life and all the things he “could” do. Then I told my precious son that his face was not going to stop “him” from doing “anything”. The man could live a good happy life, but he (my son) was going to be able to do “everything”. I am a very animated, dramatic type, so he got a very positive lecture. My son would have a scar, but no disability.
Did you folks hear about the 7 year old girl Friday, here in Riverside, CA, that was bit on the face, by the dog at a rescue facility, and needed over 1,000 stitches? My heart breaks for her. Her face must have been much worse than my son's and the terror may stick with her for the rest of her life. Her life, and that of her parents has been changed forever. Yes, their attitude will be important, but her extreme damage is horrendous. Because of this girl, I want to talk about my son. I am feeling melancholy anyway. Now that I think of it, maybe my son's life might have been more affected than I knew.
A dog also attacked my son when he was 7, walking to school. The wound and scar went from his upper inner cheek (under his eye) down to the back of the lower jaw, along the jaw, and back up past the mouth to his lower cheek. My next door neighbor drove me to the hospital since my car was in the shop, and the head nurse said it was the worst she'd ever seen, and to go ahead and take him to our HMO, and that they wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, that they would contract it out to a plastic surgeon. She was wrong. Our HMO didn't even give his case to a plastic surgeon on staff. They had whatever doctor was on duty at the moment assigned to him. He was going to just push it back together right there in the exam room with me and said it could be revised later. As he filled his syringe, the nurse said “Doctor, we don't even have the mother's permission yet.” He said “I'll get it.”
I asked them to wait till I went out to speak with my friend. She told me her friend went through the windshield in a terrible accident out in the desert on her way to Utah, and the doctors at the hospital also just pushed it back together and said it could be revised later. It was never right, always hurt her, and the moral of the story was never to let anyone do that. Always do it right the first time. I told them I was going to take my son to a plastic surgeon. They gave me a terrible time and treated me like a criminal.
I just happened to have the name of my friends plastic surgeon with me. I respected the quality of her resources very much and had used her GYN surgeon for my mother earlier. The plastic surgeon was wonderful. Even though there was a fair amount missing, he undermined all around it to fill in the fat somewhat in the missing area, and reconnected the nerve to the top lip and electrically stimulated it. Unfortunately, the long scar became pretty wide because the skin was so tight. But boys can handle scars on their face better than a girl. He was so good looking and fun loving, that all the girls liked him, scar or no scar. I know it affected him some, but he was never shy, and everybody was always his friend. He was so happy go lucky, if somebody wasn't there he didn't miss them, but who ever “was there” always felt like his best friend.
The plastic surgeon advised us to have the scar revised when he was about 18. We did, at a specialist. They custom made a skin expander to go in his cheek and then each week they would expand it more and more for about 8 weeks to try to stretch the skin to make the scar narrower. Actually it didn't help. The skin was so tight the scar just widened again. He never talked about his scar. He was too busy being a dare devil like Evil Knievel.
He was killed by a drunk driver when he was 21.
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47.4 kg
Lost so far: 6.5 kg.
Still to go: 0 kg.
Diet followed: Reasonably Well.
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1483 kcal
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Fat: 70.64g | Prot: 82.44g | Carbs: 137.66g.
Breakfast: Coffee. Lunch: Wegmans Smoked Sockeye Salmon, Baby Spinach, Egg, Butter. Dinner: Olive Garden Peach Bellini, Vanilla Ice Creams, Cherry Pie (Commercial), Olive Oil, Cooked Mushrooms (Fat Added in Cooking), Cooked or Sauteed Mature Onions (Fat Added in Cooking), Ketchup, Trader Joe's Grass Fed Angus Beef 85% Lean. more...
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Gaining 1.0 kg a Week
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