Lots to Catch Up On

We've had a few bits of news and events lately so will catch up on all of them here, rather than in separate posts.

Hiro
Our Japanese friend had surgery for stomach cancer a week ago.  The word we get is that the procedure was successful and that he'll be in the hospital for another week, and then resting at home for two more weeks.  He was scheduled to visit ATL in September, but those plans have been postponed.  Thanks to Team Mike for any Good Vibes sent his way to get him this far.

Dinner and a Haircut with Jerry
Our ATL friend and hair stylist came over for dinner this past Wednesday--the first time we've seen him since late winter, during one of his many stays in the hospital.  He's looking good and has put a few pounds back on--but is still thin.  He told us some horror stories about his medical treatments for infections after his initial surgery back in December.  At one point he was having to be hooked up to an IV for 20 hours a day for antibiotics and liquid nutrition.  That brought back some bad memories of our own.

Jerry lives alone, so he enjoyed our company and having dinner cooked for him.  He hasn't been able to cut hair since mid-December, so we worked it out that he cut my hair (badly needed) and he got in a little practice.  It was easy to tell that he missed his profession and small talk with clients, and that he's not lost any of his skills from not working since mid-December.  "Like riding a bike again" he said--and it showed.  My days with Great Clips are now officially over.

He still has some more surgery ahead, to reconnect his colon.  After that he should be on the road to a full recovery.  It was a nice evening for all of us.

Bad News from Dr. Davis
I had an appointment with the prothodontist this week to discuss options for going forward with dental reconstruction work.  The last time I saw him he took a molding of my upper and lower teeth, and from that made a temporary denture to help him line up the implants for Dr. Roser to put in later.  Dr. Davis uses this very cool 3-D imaging technology that gives him very clear and accurate pictures of what's going on in my mouth, with great views of the grafted bone in there.  He used the new mold to line up my future teeth for implants and superimposed that over the 3-D image--that's when the news turned bad.  Dr. Davis needs 4 implants (posts) for the new denture and bridge.  Unfortunately only 1 of those spots has enough bone to accommodate implants.  The other 3 are over bone grafted from my arm, so the bone is not thick enough for implants.

Dr. Davis laid out three possible Plan Bs that we'll discuss with Dr. Roser soon.  One option is to take bone from my hip and graft it in (after removing the previously grafted bone).  That would essentially be a repeat of the 2015 procedure, and set me back 12-18 months.  A spin off of that option would be to get bone from a donor (read, cadaver) instead of my hip.  The upside of that is I'd only have one surgical site to heal.  The risk is that my body could reject the alien bone.  And, to be honest, I'm not sure I can take another major surgery, or be comfortable having a dead stranger's bone in my body.

Another option is to do some more work on the other side of my mouth to allow the denture more places to be attached to.  We're not sure exactly what that would entail.

The third option is to remove all of my remaining lower teeth and put in a full detachable denture.

So, Dr. Davis will talk with Dr. Roser to discuss the specifics of each option, and at some point we'll need to make a decision.  Stay tuned.

Bite, me
The only upside to the visit with Dr. Davis is that he doesn't need that mold any more, so I got to go home with it.  For the first time in more than 2 years I had a full set of lower teeth in my mouth, and could chew with more than the very back lower teeth on my right side.  So, to give the new temporary choppers a test ride, we ordered pizza from Shorty's.  They make a very thin-crusted pie, baked in a wood fired oven--one of our favorites.  I've had to pass on all pizza for more than two years, and only recently could eat a bit with a fork after cutting it with a knife.  After test driving the new teeth with a few cut bites from a fork, I went for a full bite, right from the slice, and voila!, here's the result...

Now, I know it doesn't look like much to you--you do this without giving it so much as a thought--but for me, this is a real breakthrough.  Enough that I showed it off to Terry and she took a picture of it.  What you can't see in this picture is the huge shit-eating grin on my face (and the slobber coming out of my mouth from over-salivating). This is a small preview of what I can get back to when the dental reconstruction is done--once we can figure out which option will get me there.

Peachtree Road Race Swan Song
I have a "Cancer Revenge" list of things I wanted to get back in my life after the Prairie Dogs took them away in 2009 and beyond.  I was able to check off one of those things in 2010--running the Peachtree 10K Road Race on July 4th.  I was able to run it in 2011, 2012, and 2013.  I had to miss it the last two years due to the surgeries in early summer both times.  With this year's surgery being relatively minor, I can run it again--but for the last time.  I had a full body MRI early in 2015 that showed both of my knees could be heading towards replacement surgery--especially if I kept doing high-impact exercising. So, having more than enough of surgeries, recoveries, Caribbean Nazi nurses, Fentanyl-induced nightmares, Hotel Emory, and ICUs, I am trying to keep the two knees I got at birth for the rest of my life.  My future exercising will be walking, the elliptical machine at the Y, and riding my recumbent bicycle.

But before I hang up my running shoes for good, I am going to walk/run the Peachtree one last time, with Jeff Rupp--who will also make this his swan song.  By my count, Jeff and I have done about 15 Peachtree 10Ks together, so it's fitting that we do our last ones together. Neither of us have trained a lot, so we expect to do more walking than running--and maybe even stop for a beer along the way.  If it gets too hard (or we're too drunk), we'll just call Uber to take us to the finish line so we can get this year's ugly t-shirt and "the coldest beer ever."  Of course, we'll cap our participation the way we've done the last several times we've been able to complete the Peachtree--with a nap.

Have a safe and fun 4th of July.

Mike