The Journey begins!!!

Hello all,

This has been a long time coming. Ten years, can you BELIEVE that???

I have a surgical date of August 10 for the facial reanimation procedure...which will hereafter be known as having my face rearragned ;) My parents and Kake will be coming up and Jason will be allowed some time off as well so I'll have plenty of help.

Just so everyone knows what's going on, a little rundown for you. They will be taking a piece (or possibly all, I'm a bit fuzzy on that) of my gracillus muscle. It is located in the inner thigh and performs adduction/squeezing. They use this muscle 1) because there are other muscles that can strongly perform this function, so I don't lose anything, and 2) because it can be split and attached in slightly different locations to give a more natural line of pull in the face. They will also harvest a piece of fascia (possibly from the same incision, it depends on several factors) to help shape the muscle to its new function.

They will cut into the left (paralyzed) side of my face sort of behind my ear and along my jawline-ish into my neck to implant the muscle along the cheek and shape it with the fascia.

I will be in the hospital for 5-7 days and then need help for a week or so after that (all covered!). Doc tells me it will be mostly the leg healing that causes most of the downtime. I have preop on the 2nd and will get more info on the post surgery stuff then. I have been told I will have therapy to work on training the muscle to perform its new function, but I have no idea what that will entail. And I don't know what, if any, therapy I will have for the leg.

Once we get the therapy finished and the scars healed (there will be 2 or 3, pretty big), then I will have to clench my jaw/grit my teeth to smile. I weighed this surgery vs the full on muscle and nerve graft and I think this will give me the most important thing that I want...to once again not HATE pictures of me. I have slowly removed myself from my family's history by not wanting pictures taken. I can't do that to Zoe, Jason, or myself any longer it's just not right. But first and foremost, I am doing this for myself. While most of those who know and love me think of my tumor and surgery stuff maybe once or twice a year....less for those I don't have constant contact with...this trauma has never been over for me. It has hit me every single day and that is a weight too heavy to carry anymore without taking some action...action that my doc assures me is sane, safe, and likely to give me the function I crave. Were I to do the full on nerve and muscle graft, I'd have to committ 2 years or longer to nothing but the surgeries and recoveries, and I'm just not prepared to do that at this point in my life. I'm still busy living it.

Good news, if this works as well as I hope it does, we do have the option of going back in later and doing the nerve graft to change the electrical feed to the muscle. I am not locked into doing it, but I do have the option. Doing this later on would mean that I would no longer have to grit my teeth to smile...my new grafted muscle would hopefully just respond to the nerve on the other side of my face that is currently functioning normally.

Love to all, and thank you for taking this journey with me. I will try to update as often as possible and use pictures when I can...they could be kind of graphic so this is your warning! I want this not only to be an outlet for me, but also hopefully helpful to others who either are or will be facing what I have gone through with the paralysis.