Debridement, not resecting, for now

We met with the oral surgeon on Friday, after a CT scan. After a lot of time, he made a decision to do a debridement (de-breed-ment) of my lower left jaw, not the full resecting. That means he will take out another tooth and then scrape away any dead bone tissue until he gets to healthy tissue, and then cover it with a substance to make the jaw stronger and hopefully promote full healing. This is by far the lesser of the two options in terms of pain and recovery time, so that's good news. However, this procedure does have a moderate failure rate, so there is still a chance that the ORN will continue--and if it does, the only option left is the jaw resecting.

I'll have another 10 hyperbaric treatments after the debridement, which is someone's idea of a very sick joke. At one time I was told I already had a 'lifetime dose' of that treatment, so another round was not an option. Somebody lied and it looks like I'll have to crank up the old Secrist 4100-H for 10 more spins.

There are a lot of factors involved with the scheduling of the debridement, so we don't have a date yet. I will keep everyone posted on the date when we know it. I'll be out of commission for 3-4 days after, and on a mushy/liquid food diet for two weeks or so.

Mike

Wait and see is over: "Can we play a different game?"

The "Wait and see" strategy has not worked--the socket from the extracted tooth is no better than it was nearly 3 months ago. While it's going to take some time until the next decision gets made, unless some miracle happens, the doctors have agreed that surgery is the only option to get rid of the dead bone in my left jaw. The only question is whether to scrape away the dead bone until they hit healthy bone, or just go directly to a resectioning of my mandible. The reality of the first option is that they might have to scrape away so much dead bone that the resectioning must be done anyway.

I will get a special kind of CT scan done in a week that should give them a good picture of how much dead bone is there, but even that might not be 100% accurate. The only way to know for sure is to go into that area and see it for themselves.

I continue to have a constant, low-level pain in that area that can spike from time to time. Both are manageable with my pain medication.

I'll spare you the details of the jaw surgery until I know the specifics. But, beyond the procedure itself is 5-6 days in the hospital and a lengthy recovery period after that.

In the meantime, please keep sending your Good Vibes to Briah Margolias--the latest word is that she has stabilized--but is still far from being out of the woods.

By the way--New England wins by 7 in the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Mike

Team Mike REALLY needed for Briah

Briah is one and a half years old and the daughter of one of my former graduate students. A few days ago it was discovered that Briah has a malignant brain tumor. The doctors were able to extract about 95% of the tumor, so some cancer cells still remain. She is not able to breathe on her own and is fighting for her life as I write this to ask Team Mike for its very best Good Vibes for Briah and her parents. The odds of her survival are heavily stacked against her, so she needs every possible kind of support. We have also been told that she must start her chemo treatments right away, which will put additional stress on her body.

Winnie Brown started her radiation treatments about 10 days ago, so she also needs some of your Good Vibes. From what we are being told, she is doing OK with the treatments so far. Her challenge will increase over the course of the treatments as the pain and discomfort get notched up.

As for me, some of my 'wait and see' ends today with an appointment with the best jaw ORN in ATL. I'll post an update later today or tomorrow. In the meantime, PLEASE send your best Good Vibes to Briah--she needs them much more than me.

Mike