good news and more bad news

Yesterday I saw one of Dr. S's colleagues.  The good news is that he said I'm fine to take my trip in September.

The bad news is that it's because it will be a while before Dr. S will be able to put in the bone stimulating proteins.  Apparently, I need to heal up before he can put thim in and this doctor indicated it would be a few months.  But what was even more interesting was that he indicated that Dr. S might need to put more bone in.  I'm not sure if this doctor was seeing more bone loss then Dr. S had initially seen, or if Dr. S was giving me the better scenario hoping that he would be able to just use the bone stimulating proteins.  Either way, time will tell how much bone I lose and how to deal with it.

I had thought the bone stimulating proteins would go in sooner, but the more I think about it Dr. S didn't give much of an indication of when they would go in.  It was Dr. F who seemed to indicate that they would use them soon.

The most frustrating part is knowing that all this will delay the whole process.  I'm not sure if it will delay the braces much since the bone is more for the implants then for the the braces.  But this would certainly delay getting the implants.

Overnight in the hospital

I've been meaning to write about my night in the hospital for a few days now because it sucked.  I hate to be so negative, but anyone who has spent a night in the hospital knows what I'm talking about.

I fall asleep around 10pm and then around 11pm my Mom decides to go home, but wakes me up in the process.  I was up for a while after that, in part because the hallway light was shining on my face.

It was like that all night, I would fall asleep and anywhere between 40 minutes and an hour and a half something would wake me up.  One time it was the IV machine beeping, then it was my roommate moaning in pain, then they want to take your blood pressure.  In the true irony of it all, the longest stretch of peacefulness I experienced was when i was awake and writing emails on my iPhone because something had woken me up and I couldn't get back to sleep.

Ugh, not good news

I went to see Dr. F today and he seemed happy with the progress I was making and put in one of my fake teeth.  My mouth does look better, but the tooth is kinda annoying.

He also explained how the bone stimulating proteins would be put in.  There is a bit of an upside down valley in my gums where the bone is supposed to be.  The bone stimulating proteins would be put in there and then that valley will fill in.  But the bad news is that Dr. F told me to make sure I can fly after they put it in.  Ok, he didn't say I couldn't fly.  But since I'm going away in the middle of September if there is a restriction I could have an issue.

I did call Dr. S's office and am waiting a call back.

Back to the surgeon

I saw Dr. S again this week and got some good news.  My wound around the bone graft is healing now, similar to how a scab heals over a cut.

I no longer have to rise with peroxide and water, instead I have to use one of those liquid syringe things and clean out the wound with that.  I think it's a bit better, but I'm not sure how much better that is.

The orthodontist

I saw Dr. F this week for the first time since the surgery.  It was obvious that he hadn't spoken to Dr. S yet.  He did try to call him while I was there, but wasn't able to talk to him.  He said he would talk to him that night.

I filled him in on the bone situation and he noticed the missing tooth himself.

He changed my wire in the top, another thick wire which left my teeth quite sore.  So just as the pain was fading so I didn't constantly need to take advil, the new wire changed all that.

Dr. F did not put in my fake tooth and is working on another tooth to put in place of the tooth that was taken out.  I'm hoping for next week when I go, but I doubt it.

Otherwise, he sent me on my way reminding me to keep the open wound in my mouth clean.

2nd Doctor's visit

I went to see Dr. S today.  I was a little worried about this visit because I got the impression when I saw the covering surgeon last week that things weren't quite right with the healing.  I didn't think it was anything major, but something just wasn't right.

I waited a while to see Dr. S and when they brought me back they put me in a different room then I had ever been in before, this one was obviously one they used for in-office surgeries.  The chair was much more sophisticated, the room was much larger, there was an IV stand.  Then I found the draws labeled for "IV meds," and "emergency meds."  That didn't make me feel more confident.

After waiting a little more Dr. S finally came in and said that the covering Doctor said that I had some bone exposed.  He asked if I noticed.  I said it just looked like a funny hole to me, though I will say that I do sometimes notice a bit of mucus or blood on my front teeth that I think is coming from my sinus area.  Though at the time I wasn't sure if that was what he was referring to.  He looked in my mouth, but couldn't see much.  He cleaned out the wound area and then irrigated.

The Good:  The palate and the floor of my nose are "communicating" and healing up fine.
My leg is doing well.  He seemed happy that I was walking without a limp, still a little sore and taking it easy with stairs.

The Bad:  I still have an open wound from the bone graft and have lost some bone.  He didn't seem too concerned at this point.  He said it may need to be cleaned out another 1 or 2 times and then he'll put in some bone stimulating proteins (in the office, not a surgery) and take it from there.

My mom's biggest worry - I wont be able to go to Las Vegas next Friday.  It crossed my mind, but my mind was running a bit at the time so I didn't ask.  I didn't get the impression that it would, unless you puts in the bone stimulating proteins next week.  But I'll ask next week when I go, it's not like I can do anything about it now anyway.

My leg still hurts

The other day my sister and my Mom dragged me to the outlets.  It sounded like it wasn't going to be an extended day of outlet shopping like we sometimes do so I didn't think too much of it.  But as usual, we were there for hours.  The problem is that while I can walk fine on my leg, it was still sore.  I woke up in the middle of the night when my pain killers wore off and my leg was hurting worse then it had in about a week.  I am feeling better now after taking a day to rest my leg.

Aside from the outlet thing, I thought my leg would be feeling pretty much normal by now, but it's not there yet.  I can walk fine, sometimes it feels sore, other times it feels pretty close to normal.  Stairs are an issue.  I can go up without much problem, I think that is more of an issue of the muscles being weak from not being used.  I have not been able to walk down normally though, my knee hurts when I bend that much.

My first visit to the doctor

My surgeon is on vacation this week so I saw a different one and I didn't really care for him much.  I felt like I got berated for blowing my nose, which apparently i'm not allowed to do, even though my doctor said I could do it very very softly. 

He irrigated my mouth and cleaned out the wound which felt weird.  

He said I could eat some more foods.  But I can't bite into anything with my front teeth, but can eat stuff that needs just a little chewing in the back of my mouth.  I'm not sure how much more food that is, but I'm sure I'll come up with some new ideas.

I have to say my gums look really weird though.  Before I just had a gap in my gums up to the roof of my mouth.  Now it looks kinda like a hook or an O with a hole on the edge.  It looks like the gums behind my tooth line need to grow forward and that the hook needs to grow to connect to the other side of my gums, which it doesn't really do.  It's weird, I thought the gums would look much more complete.

I think I sprung a leak

Over the last day or two I've noticed that when I blow my nose I can taste it.  I think that somehow my nose and mouth are still connected and there is a hole somewhere.  This goes back to when I thought liquids where still sneaking into my nose.  I thought I was crazy then, but maybe not.  I think I have a leak somewhere in there.  I go to the doctor tomorrow so hopefully I'll get some answers.

I was a Guinea Pig

I found for this surgery I ended up as a bit of a guinea pig, which I didn't feel like last time.

Dr. S's resident decided he wanted to refresh his memory of how to do IV's.  The nurse let him do it.  The IV went in ok, but after the surgery it was killing me, way more then anything else did.  It had to be moved to my other arm and even after it came out my arm hurt when the blood pressure cuff would check my blood pressure. Hmmm, maybe he should practice on someone with better veins.

Then after the surgery in recovery my nurse was in training, she wasn't too bad at her job, but she certainly didn't seem ready to care for 2 patients at a time.  The good news is that the nurse helping her was very good.

I think much more guinea pig stuff would have pushed me over the edge.

I'm a sensitive little thing!

Yesterday and today I've noticed the roof of my mouth has gotten more sensitive, and it feels quite strange.  Yesterday I started to notice that when I would drink it would sometimes feel like liquid would go up my nose, yet it doesn't.  I've occasionally gotten the same sensation today but I've also found at time that the roof of my mouth is getting sore so when I touch it, it sometimes hurts.  I guess the numbness is wearing off, I guess that's both good and bad.

Fascinating Recovery

When I woke up from surgery I was fascinated by what was going on around me.  The first things I did was check the clock and check to see if I lost a tooth.  But then I found everything going on around me to be really interesting.  The girl to my right had a double mastectomy and had another wound, she was going home that day. Though interestingly she didn't have anyone there waiting for her, she had some friends meeting her later on - WOW!

A little while later a new patient came in to my left and she had also had a mastectomy.  Wow, apparently I need to get on top of my breast self checks!

When I woke up I asked for my parents, I knew that since I was staying overnight they would allow them in for a visit, unlike last time when I had to pull myself together.  The nurse said I had to wait until I left recovery, but I told her I was staying overnight and she said I could see them soon.  It did take a while to see them though since they had to change my IV first.  When my parents had left they told them it would be about an hour until I got my room, it ended up taking closer to 2 hours between getting some drugs (I wasn't in pain so I didn't take medication until after my parents left,) and getting all of my paperwork together.

There was a nurse who had been working recovery for about 3 months and she was my nurse.  But after 3 months she was having issues with managing 2 patients.  I heard a fair amount of conversation about her and the nurse mentoring her kept having to remind her to do things and keep on top of things and stuff.  I'm afraid poor old Sally doesn't have a career in recovery.  I hope I don't get to find out from experience though.  But who knows the nurse mentoring lives in my town so I could run into her somewhere.