Scars make you stronger

Scars Make Youy Stronger

Searching for a great Plastic Surgeon is so hard when I had the best. No Plastic surgeon would touch my face because of the lack of experience with my facial rare disease, Parry Romberg Syndrome. Somehow Dr John Westin Seibert ,who was based Manhattan ,lost his medical license in New York. Totally unfair because Dr Seibert, who was the chief of the Plastic Surgery at NYU Plastic Surgery Teaching Hospital. Among his fellow Plastic Surgeons  he was highly praised and considered a "pioneer" in the development of new facial procedures to help people with disfigured faces regain their dignity,lead normal lives and smile when they look in the mirror. 

He invented a very radical micro surgery called a "Vascular Facial Transplant." The first long term procedure to stop and fix the damage caused my this rare ullness. I had this surgery 12 years ago and I only have to have a little touch-ups every 3 or so years. So little is actually know about PRS and Through social media and my blog based on living with a rare disease many desperate people saw Dr. Seibert many traveling thousands of miles to have the costly life changing surgery I had. This disease varies in severenes and  

The procedure helps some more than other's. So someone who wasn't happy spread vicioious news stories and eventually Dr. John Seibert relocated his practice to Wisconsin. I was devastated.

     I saw a new doctor last week to check my face since my much loved doctor who I have mentioned in many posts no longer practices surgical procedures in New York.

    This doctor who I introduced through my blog to so many readers is now practicing in Michigan.

    So how did I pick a new doctor to trust? I first researched my areas top doctor lists and called looked at their 

experience and patient comments.

     There were so many it took me hours of research and basically it was a waste 

of time. I then thought back to the Surgeon who saved my daughter's arm 

10 years ago when she was just three years old and was critically injured when her camp bus flipped over leaving her left arm completely "de-gloved" of skin her bus flipped on its side and her little arm

was dragged through the window and road for half a block.

    His was on call that day and miraculously was able to pull down all the skin on her arm and close the massive 

wound. 

     Yes she still has a large scar in the back of her arm that has faded with time

but will always be part of who she is.

 The important thing is she survived and that wonderful Plastic Surgeon gave my

daughter back the total use of her arm.

   I brought my daughter with me to see this doctor and he still remembered her first name and he told her she was his his favorite patient! I know he wished he could tell Samantha her scar can be revised by the look I saw in his eyes. However, it just isn't possible without the risk of joint and nerve damage. 

   I told him I could never thank him enough for saving her arm and my daughter hugged him. 

   She then said, "My mom and I have scars but we are stronger because we learned life is not about being perfect."

  Quite a statement about life from my

beautiful Samantha. 

 

 

Sam Starts Up

My baby,ok she is turning on March 13, and she is having a party.
Samantha Jill Klein was born on March 13, 2001. She is named Samantha after her paternal grandfather Stanley, who perished on Swiss Air flight 111 in 1998. Her middle name Jill is named after my Aunt Janice who was my mother's only sister.
Sammy rebels. She tries desperately to get "love" she feels she missed as a baby. I had a major Vascular Flap Transplant on my face, On march 13 2001, her first birthday.

That second year of her life my face my right side of my face had some complications and the swelling was double the size of my other side of my face.
I didn't know at the time my operation I waited 25 years would have effects that showed up later in her life.

When Sammy was three and a half years old, on July 24th 2004 i recieved a phone call from the NYC Police Dept. They informed me my daughters were on the bus on there way home from day camp when a driver went through a stop sign , hitting the mini bus, on the right side flipping the bus over and "I screamed" are they alive? They told me one daughter had minor injuries, and my other daughter was in very critical condition and I should go to some hospital in Queens, NY.
I must have drove 80mph and in 10 minutes I burst through the emergency room, she was in the first room, the one that was used for the worst injuries. I saw at least 5 doctors, another 4 nurses and I got closer and screamed "where is sammy"s Arm? her right arm was degloved, no skin was attached, and all I saw was blood.
Suddenly my litle one, called out "hi mommy" she was alive.
The bus flipped on sam's side and even though she was in a Child seat she went through the glass and her arm was dragged on the street a few feet.
Her Arm,"where is her arm?' a strange doctor pushed me in the hall and said she has a arm, she is lucky.
I stayed by her side for over a month she was hospitalized from her wounded arm.The eve of the accident a doctor was able to pull up her skin and cover the wound.We never picked the plastic surgeon. He was nervous but performed the 10 hour operation. My mother and brother waited with me till Sam was in the recovery room at 3am. My mother who loved her family morethan herself, went over to Sam and patted her little head wrapped in bandages and said "Ok, to my brother Charles we can go home." I was always going to remember that memory of her.
I was so tired those four weeks, my mother tried to take over and send me home for some rest. My mom who went through so much with me, still at 70 years old was "mommy" I needed her so much.
She would always have a scar because there was not enough skin to use.
Another nightmare my daughter didn't have Parry Romberg Syndrome thank god,but she would have to deal with some of the issues I went through. My heart sank. Sammy and I have had many conversations when she is asked about her arm.
She and I have more than a mother daughter bond/ we share things that nobody else would ever understand. Happy Birthday Samantha

I Love YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Much.

Mommy