consultation with dr. lee, plastic surgeon...

this morning we met with dr. gordon lee, the surgeon who will be performing trish's reconstruction.

we met with dr. lee in october of last year and learned of our choices, so today was more a refresher for us, but more importantly for dr. lee to examine trish and check out the canvas he has to work with.

during the upcoming surgery, dr. lee will follow dr. jeffrey's mastectomy and insert tissue expanders on both sides of trish. the tissue expanders are the first step of the reconstruction process, and will be later swapped out for implants months down the road.

expanders are basically implants that have the ability to be filled on the weekly basis. they are inserted behind the muscle and filled up with saline to a volume that the skin can handle. every week or two, trish will return to the dr. lee's office so the expanders can be filled more, thus expanding the skin even more.

the whole point is to stretch/expand the skin to the point of final implant size. depending on the final size desired, this is a process that can take weeks or months.

once the expanders are filled to the desired size, they are left alone for the body to adjust to the final size and a final surgery is scheduled to remove the expander and replace them with implants. we anticipate the second surgery to be somewhere in the May 2010 time frame.

as for this upcoming surgery, we are hoping for it to be during the week of Oct 5th. trish doesn't want to be in recovering mode for caden's 3rd birthday that is coming up at the end of september. but ultimately we are at the mercy of dr. jeffrey and dr. lee coordinating their schedules, and since trish is no longer "cancerous", she slides down the totem pole a bit..

thanks for checking in...