Good News!

Just a quick post to share some good news. I just got back from seeing my Maxillofacial surgeon for my 2 week follow up and he is so pleased with how much healing has taken place since the surgery.

AND (yes, it gets better) he is giving me the go ahead to move into ortho treatment right away.

Awesome huh?!?!?!

I should have another 4 week wait before I'm ready for ortho, but my body is healing so well & he knows I'll take extra good care of myself and my teeth so he's letting me start!

I am so excited - it means I get rid of the flipper sooner rather than later and that we're taking another step in the right direction. This is also the first time for a long time that something has happened ahead of schedule with my health and dental issues!!!

So, watch this space people - brace face will be showing up a little sooner than scheduled! :)

Now I really need to get off here and get cracking - I have so much to do today and tomorrow. We're heading camping tomorrow afternoon for the weekend so we have to pack all that stuff into the truck and for some reason while I was at the store I thought it would be an awesome idea to take advantage of the deal they had on apples, so I just bought 10 pounds of Granny Smith apples that I am planning to make canned apple pie filling with and I still have berries in the refrigerator downstairs. Not to mention the chili and scones I'm making to take with us camping... Oh and dinner for tonight...

Yikes!

Over & out!

I'm a chipmunk... just not sure which one!

Well, it's been several days since surgery and simply put I feel terrible.

Cory stayed home from work on Thursday and Friday to help me and that was awesome. A good perk of being ahead on the farm during harvest.

I was doing pretty good up til about Sunday when my swelling started to get worse and the bruises took on some colour. My mouth is pretty stiff and sore and I think I look like a chipmunk. I totally don't look like me, I look different... weird.

I spent most of yesterday doing not very much. I rested and slept most of the day and kept cool in the basement. Today has been pretty much the same thing, I've been bored out of my head but there's not much else I can do about that. I've been reading online, searching out recipes and watching a little tv - yep, sounds about as boring as ever, huh.

I'm thinking about canning... yep, sounds exciting huh? Apple pie fillilng, jam etc etc.... So, perhaps we'll be out picking fruit this weekend! :)

Anyway, that's about the height of it. I'm scheduled to see Dr Johnson for a follow up next week on Wednesday, unless the swelling and pain doesn't go away, in which case I'll see him sooner...

No Surprises

This is from an email I sent to some friends and family members yesterday afternoon after surgery - As you can read, there were no surprises and everything went by the book.
My sleep was restless last night but I am taking it easy today and Cory's Dad told him to stay home with me too, which is awesome. It's nice having him here to take care of me :)

----------------
12th Aug at 17:21
Everything went well this morning. Last night I was very anxious as I went to bed but I woke up this morning filled with peace and the nerves had reduce substantially. (I didn't even cry as we drove to the appointment - and I'm telling ya, that is a first).

Dr Johnson performed the surgery expertly. He reported that the cyst was large but that they were able to clean it all out nicely and graft the site with bottle-bone. He also removed some tissue underneath a 1st molar on my lower jaw - it looked like it was forming a cyst there and they didn't want to take any chances. Thankfully we didn't need to graft that site and hopefully it will heal well by itself. The cyst in this site was so close in proximity to the other cyst there that it doesn't appear to be anything to worry about. They have sent the cyst tissue to OSHU for biopsy and I will receive the results in 2 weeks. Dr Johnson is 99% sure it's the same type of cyst we found on the upper jaw and should be nothing to cause further concern.

Everything went so smoothly, my Doctor couldn't have wished for anything to go any better - this is also a first for my surgeries and I am very thankful!

I'm in a fair amount of pain right at the moment but I have some pain killers that I will use tonight if necessary and they already gave me some meds through my IV that should keep the swelling and bruising to a minimum. Movement in my lower jaw is very restricted at the moment but I'm doing good & Cory is doing a great job of taking care of me.

D-Day tomorrow

I know I've been bad at writing, I've been both busy and not really in the best of moods, so I figured it would be smart to not write while that's the case. It'd only end up with short sharp posts anyway! ha!

So, tomorrow is D-Day for me. I will be having my latest maxillofacial surgery. I was scheduled to have two implants placed tomorrow, two bone grafts (one upper & one lower), a cyst removed and teeth pulled but it turns out that we have had a change of direction.

The 3D scan showed that I do not in fact have enough bone in the upper site to hold the Ti implants. The bone has reabsorbed into my body and is now too thin to hold the implants. That was a major blow that I hadn't really expected to hear. I thought we were doing really good with the bone strength up there.
The other thing that changed the game plan was the position of the canines. I need to have them moved a little so that the implants can go into exactly the correct spot. Ugh.

So the treatment plan has changed. We will be leaving the implants until the end of orthodontic work which will be in about 30 months (+/-). Tomorrow we will remove the lower incisor (for ortho) and a lower molar and also they will remove the cyst that has grown in my lower jaw at the front, they will also bone graft the site at that time.

I'm hoping it will not mean a loss of nerves to the teeth above the cyst, but it's a risk we have to play with.

In approx 6 weeks I should be good to go into ortho and get that ball rolling. We're going to have to keep a really close eye on the upper bone grafted site to make sure that the bone loss there doesn't get too much worse, and if it does it means dropping implants during ortho to stop resorption and save what they can. If everything goes to plan, after ortho I will have one final surgery (which I didn't expect... ) which will place an autograft - a block of bone taken from my own body and placed in the site - and also a Xenogenic graft which is a block of bovine bone.
I will have a soft tissue graft at that time and the implants placed. It sounds like a lot, well, it is a lot but I'm really trying to not worry about that right now. I'm just trying to keep stress free and rested for surgery tomorrow and worry about each procedure as it comes up.

I'm just very thankful for good doctors, who know exactly what they're doing and have a vision in mind. They are fighting for the very best for me in this situation, so that's definitely something to be glad about.

Another nap...

So, yesterday I had to have another IV induced nap. I needed to have surgery to remove the Titanium membrane that was placed during the last surgery when Dr Johnson did the big bone graft.

Since I would be having the IV for that surgery, I had two wisdom teeth removed also. I would need them removed for Ortho work coming up soon anyway, so may as well kill two birds with one stone (so to speak). The main reason for the Ortho is so that the Ti implants that I will have (eventually) will be placed in precisely the right spot. It has to be so perfectly exact when they are placed, so we have to move some other teeth around a little first.

Anyway (sorry, I'm rambling), the surgery went really well. Dr Johnson took out the Ti membrane and whipped out the two wisdom teeth. My face is hurting and is so stiff, but the nurse gave me something in the IV before she removed it that would stop the bruising and swelling so I shouldn't look like I did last time. Lets hope!

Dr Johnson did awesome with the IV again, he's a pro. I'm so thankful that I have good Doctors working with us through this process.

Oooh, and one thing I should mention that I'm excited for is that on Wednesday Genie (my Mother in Law) and I are going to Lake Oswego to Lady Di's British Store and Teahouse. I'm excited to get some goodies from home, and am planning to get Cory his first ever UK style Easter egg!