Trauma

Sunday evening, Dec 23rd, the majority of my upper lip was amputated by a dog bite. The paramedics rushed me to UK where the oplastic surgeon, to my horror, told me that they would not be able to reattach due to the severity of the injury. I was so unbelievably scared and emotionally devastated because he was essentially tellnig me that I would live the rest of my life with no upper lip. I had nothing from the bottom of my nose on down, all you could see were gums and teeth and the remaining part of the lip on the edges of where a mustache usually grows. He started to clean and dress the wound when another plastic surgeon came in the room and heavily sedated me, though I was still aware of my surroundings. I felt them working on the wound but was so numbed up that I could not feel much, they were not able to put me comletely under since they had already given me morphine. I kept hearing them say "looking better, looking better" and I was not sure if I was haluccinating or not. After about an hour of this stitching and cleaning, she took another picture (she had also taken one prior to any work being done on it) and showed me, I was AMAZED! they were able to pull both remaiing portions of my upper lip together by stretching the rest of my face and sew it in the middle. Yes it does look horrible and it is a disfigurment, but compared to what I looked like prior to this work being done, I was amazed that they were able to salvage anything. It will be a long time, several surguries, and require a little luck for me to look normal again, but I have realized that it could have been much worse and I need to be thankful for what they were able to do, and I am. I feel this has changed me for the better. I know there will be days in the coming months where I will want to feel sorry for myself and will be down and sad, but I also know that this is natural to feel that way and that my life is not over simplt because of a physical deformity. If anything, I am going to look at this as a new beginning, one in which I appreciate life more.