What a difference a year makes. The experience between last year's surgery and yesterday's surgery could have happened on two different planets. Although the day was long, everything went smoothly----both surgeons were exhausted but pleased with their handiwork. Mike will have a Kirk Douglas cleft on his chin to replace the one that he lost last year.
The best news of all is the cast is on his left wrist instead of his right leg!
Stop reading now if you don't want to see the gory details.
Even though Roser and Wadsworth tried to prepare me and my sis-in-law, Aleisa for what he looked like, we were shocked. His face was really swollen with stitches running from the left ear through the original scar from last year which I expected, but there were additional stitches that they talked about, but didn't really register with us until we saw him later in ICU.
The affected bone was in the mandible, much smaller than they originally thought, so a small piece of the radial bone fit perfectly into where the dead bone was removed. Roser was very pleased that the native bone on the right and the transplant on the left from last year looked healthy. The biggest issue was the fistula in his chin had gotten larger and the radiated skin on his chin had gotten harder so they could not just simply suture the two sides together. One skin flap from the wrist covered the inside of the wound and the other was used to cover the gap on the outside in the middle of his chin. This necessitated additional sutures running from the neck incision around both sides of the transplanted skin and through his lower lip.
You can only imagine my surprise this morning when I showed up in ICU to find him awake and
communicating through hand signals, facial expressions and writing short notes on a pad of paper. He
has been seen by Roser and his surgical team, the ICU team and Wadworth's team this morning. They've already removed the ventilator so he's breathing on his own. The plan is to keep him in ICU for another two days then move him to a room on this same floor. Wadsworth says two weeks in the hospital but that could change depending on his progress.
Thank you to each and everyone of you who have kept us in your prayers, sent good vibes, kept your fingers and toes crossed and have kept the good thoughts streaming our way. Keep up the good work because it's still going to be a long recovery. To help keep Mike's spirit up, I'm starting a funny get well card campaign/contest. He loves getting cards---the funnier the better and of course sick, irreverent ones will work, too. You can mail to our home address. If you don't have our address
contact me at terry.metzler@healthmpowers.org and I'll send address to you.
I'll keep posting daily until mike can post again. Take care, Terry AKA Mikey's nurse
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