It has been just about a year since my HBOT treatments finished and my wound finally healed!! YAY!! A couple of times along the way the skin opened up a little but more like a typical cut or scab and nothing like it was before. I will always need to be extra careful with my incision line because it will take longer for it to heal than a cut anywhere else. However, other than using sunscreen and non-permanent organic dyes and protecting my head from harm I can go back to living a normal life.
I will always have visible reminders of my accident. There is the small scar from the PICC line and another scar from where I had a hard time clotting after an IV was removed from one of my surgeries. I have the scar on my head which is flat on the back of my head but is more of a ridge on the top. My doctors have told me that the ridge is a result of all of the infections and the skin becoming I guess slightly damaged.
The biggest visual reminder that I have is that the right side of my face dips in where the jaw muscle had atrophied from being cut and reattached with each of the surgeries.
Now What?
I have talked to several doctors about my options because it is not something that will fix itself. Typically, fat is injected into the site, kind of like botox. With all of the complications that I have had so far it is something that my doctors are more than a little hesitant about doing.
It would strictly be for cosmetic purposes and it is something that anyone who has treated me wouldn’t consider doing for several years from now. When anything is injected into the body there is always the chance of an infection developing. There is no oxygen in fat which is what can lead to an infection developing. Since there is no bone on that side of my face, only a plastic prosthesis, there is even less opportunity for oxygen to be pumped to the site which can possibly put me at even greater risk of infection. Not to mention that I have already had a number of infections around this area already.
So now I have several years to decide what is the right decision for me. Do I insert some fat into the side of my face and hope for the best? Or do I just leave it and live with the fact that the right side of my face looks like it is sinking in a little?
I don’t love the way that it looks and a part of me would love to fix it. But since I will be living with it for years before they will even think about touching it by that point I might become used to it and just leave it. Luckily I have a lot of hair so it’s not something most people even see.
Charlene xoxo