Plastic surgeon referral

After a few days feeling all hung up about the possibility that I may never get to see this new plastic surgeon, I got a call yesterday whilst on the way to the hospital from someone mysterious. She had the same name as me and I thought she was prank calling me - because I was on the train, the signal was bad and I was pretty convinced that it was a joke. I called her back after I'd gotten off the train and turns out it was the plastic surgeon's secretary. I had an appointment arranged for today, and saw him today.

And it's good news! Well, for now at least. As pessimistic as it seems, I want to remain a realist, and as such not get excited about prospects before they prove true and viable. Now, in the equation we have a dormant vascular surgeon, my orthopaedic surgeon (whom I see every week) and the plastic surgeon I met today. He was a little persistent with going for amputation and termination but I was very adamant that I had thought about it and that I wasn't prepared to go down that road in the foreseeable future. I had explained that this was not the first time amputation was suggested to me, and that I'd considered it carefully every time someone had brought it up in the past. 

He said that performing a cross flap was not really an option since the remaining tissue is very unhealthy and it's highly unlikely anything will take on it - hence the worthlessness of grafting too, since I'll have a donor site for nothing. Instead, he decided that we would use Integra, a synthetic skin base-type produce (I think) and that he would extract abdomen fat and use those cells (he said stem cells?) to embed the Integra into my skin. So, I get a tummy tuck AND there's potential for a cure! Later on, if that works, we'll have to go in for more grafting since there will be a more viable bed for the graft to take on.

There's only one hospital in the private system that he knows of with the special stem cell machine in London so I don't have hospital choice but that's not a problem at all. Better still, he said he wanted to get this done ASAP, so he'll talk to his secretary and I can book another appointment. Then we can go ahead. Lots of steps still, but I'm making small steps in the right direction.