I had a PET scan last week which confirmed that the ORN is still progressing. No need to tell me that after a new bone shard came out and I found another area of exposed bone in the back of my jaw. So the discussion is no longer about if I'll need the jaw resecting, it's about when it will happen. We spent a lot of time today with the oral surgeon who gave us a lot of information and answered a lot of questions.
We have decided to wait until after we return from New Zealand to do the procedure--unless of course some emergency happens in the meantime, and this needs to get done right away. The decision was based on a lot of factors, most importantly the amount of time needed to recover after the surgery, and the number of days I will need to miss from work for that. The conservative estimate is 4-6 weeks, but it could easily be longer. If I have the procedure soon, I would miss the rest of this semester and likely run out of paid sick days by then. If I can mange to wait until we get back from NZ, I would miss only about the last two weeks of spring semester, and then have several more weeks to recover over the summer, without using too many sick days.
So, we are taking a measured gamble that I can hold off until April, and manage to avoid any dramatic progression of the ORN or emergency situations between now and when we get back from NZ. But if the shit hits the fan at any time before then, we go into full resecting mode with no questions and figure out the rest from there.
As you may recall, I've described three levels of luck over the last 4+ years in my battle with the Prarie Dogs: good luck, bad luck, and S***** F***KING Luck (SFL). My record shows a long and consistent pattern of SFL, but maybe this time I can turn that around and we can have a wonderful but uneventful (ORN wise) stay in NZ. That's where Team Mike comes in--rather then needing your Good Vibes to get me through another acute episode, I need them to keep me from having an emergency before the jaw surgery happens in April.
I will admit that the thought of this procedure scares the hell out of me. It is not life threatening like the battle with cancer in 2009, but nothing about this will be simple, easy, or pain-free--and I'll need to go back into that zone of coping with pain, meds, liquid diet, etc. until I can come out on the other side of this. All in all, I'd rather be in Western New York State in the dead of winter, wearing nothing but shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops, sitting in Rich Stadium watching the Bills lose to a local high school team.
Mike
