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
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