scar stories...two.

this week we'll get to the reason for the skin grafts mentioned last week.

i was born with a hairy nevus on my head that covered my forehead and eyelid on the right.

as a child (under 12) i had six surgeries performed on my forehead and eyebrow.

these were the skin grafts.

eventually, i asked that we stop.

when i was fifteen and still shaving the hair from my forehead that grew through the scars, i asked my parents if we could travel back to stanford to see my plastic surgeon and find out what more could be done.

dr. kaplan put an expander under my skin on the left side of my forehead and for the summer we stretched the skin by injecting saline into its tube system every couple of days.

at the end of summer he used the stretched skin to create a better scar, removed the hair follicles, improved the eyebrow, and removed the bit of nevus still on my eyelid.

when feeling especially critical i can certainly see things i would like worked on again, but all in all this is huge improvement over the previous scars and the original hairy nevus.

i know i am lucky as well that i can wear my hair in such a way that mostly covers these scars.