Good News/Possible Bad News, More Wait and See

It's been an eventful last month dealing with the osteoradionecrosis (ORN) in my left jaw. It started a few months before that with increasing pain that eventually radiated from my jawline to my temple. The problem was being caused by slow healing of the bare socket made by the tooth extraction in October. Healing that should have been complete in 4-6 weeks had barely started more than 10 weeks later, and the pain got worse with each week.

Right after Christmas I felt a bony 'bump' in the socket and thought that another ulcer had opened up. While using a water pic a few days later, a sizable shard of dead bone came out of the socket, and the pain immediately started to subside. That was the good news.

I saw the oral surgeon earlier this week and caught her up on things, thinking she would be happy about those developments. Mixed reaction. She was happy that my pain level had gone down a lot, but the slow rate of healing is still very much a concern. New gum tissue can't grow over dead bone tissue, so she thinks there's still a good chance that I have more dead bone in my jaw. That's the possible bad news.

I have an appointment the first week in February with the best doctor in ATL for jaw ORN. He'll take new scans and then decide whether to: 1) wait more to see what happens, 2) go in and scrape out any dead bone he can find, or 3) do some type of resection (take out a chunk of the jaw and replace it with a metal plate or bone tissue from another part of my body).

So, on with more wait and see, with the odds of this healing on its own still at about 50/50. I can say that I am a lot more comfortable than I've been for 3-4 months, now that the bone shard worked its way out of the socket--so at least the wait is not a painful one anymore. I can now use my Roxicet for recreational purposes and watching Republican Presidential debates, not pain relief. Just kidding.

I do have an update on our friend, Winnie. She is getting fitted for a head and shoulder mask that keeps her completely still during the radiation sessions. My own experience with that was nothing short of a "white knuckle" claustrophobic reaction that required me to be medicated for the first two weeks or so of the treatments. As my tumor started to shrink, it got a bit better, but my heart raced every time they put that thing on and buckled it into the table. Well, Winnie is also claustrophobic, so she is going to need lots of Good Vibes to help her through this. Please do that for her.

I'll continue to report on my situation when the "wait and see" is over and the next course of treatment is determined.

Mike