Lilah's mom, Paige, will be sharing about her daughter and their journey to repair her Tessier Cleft. We will share Lilah's story here every week or two, as the treatment progresses. In two to three months, when the tissue expander is ready, Lilah will have one final surgery to repair her eye, complete a bone graft for her cleft as well as some soft tissue work. The first post on this journey can be found here. The second can be found here. And you can read Lilah's adoption story here.
I haven't posted in awhile about Lilah's tissue expander fills. I thought I would do one now that another four weeks (and four more fills) have gone by!
Lilah has absolutely no complaints regarding any pain. She cannot chew or lay down on that side of her face, but the only discomfort she has is the tube that runs behind her ear. Her cheek is very large now and the skin looks like a balloon. It is stretched so taunt that it is more transparent than usual and shiny as well. The expander has slipped down toward her jaw and this isn't ideal, but hopefully won't cause any problems when the surgery is actually done.
I did find out that the surgery likely won't be done until late August or early September. The tissue expander needs to stay in for 2-3 months after the fills are complete or the skin will contract too quickly.
Today's fill, brings us up to 65 cc's of saline. The surgeon does want to overfill it a little bit, because I guess it can deflate slightly over time. We will see the Plastic Surgeon in two weeks to see if they want to do any more fills. We also see the Opthamologist on Monday and hopefully he will be pleased with the expander and it's location.
Read more about Lilah and her family at Life's Little Wonders.
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