Jaw Surgery #5 Starts Today!

Hi, it's Robin. I'm writing for Faith as we go through yet another big jaw surgery (5th major jaw surgery, 4th jaw distraction).

As Faith mentioned in an earlier post, she made the decision last spring that she didn't want to wait till next summer for her next big jaw distraction.  In fact, she wanted to have it over the summer, but since we already had plans to go to Cali to celebrate Grandpa's 90'th birthday (Wow!!) and go to Disneyland, we had to wait till fall.  And here it is!

We left Colorado Wednesday evening, flew to Indianapolis getting in just before 1am on Thursday and drove to Cincinnati, arriving a bit after 3am.   We checked into our hotel and slept until 10am! We went to the Newport Levee for lunch and then drove out to see Dr. Gordon at the Liberty satellite campus and talked about the details.  After that, we drove back to the hotel, met up with my cousin Lynda and her husband Rich who happened to be at a conference up in Dayton and went to dinner at the rotating restaurant on top of the Radisson hotel where we are staying.  Then Faith talked me into taking her to the pool for a late evening swim and finally off to bed by 11pm just to get up around 5am today!

During her clinic appointment, Dr. Gordon thought Faith's jaw opening looked really good, so he decided to not do one part of the surgery, a coronoidectomy that he thought he would need to do from looking at her CT scans.  So her surgery this time includes:
1) removing some hardware from the mid-face left behind from her last surgery,
2) doing the lower jaw distraction with placement of the Rigid Extraction Device (RED) and
3) adding some bone paste to her cheekbones to make up for some deficiencies in that area.

Here are Faith's before pics this time around:

Compare these to her before pics from June of 2015: (http://kargoll.blogspot.com/2015/06/before-surgery-pics.html)

One of the biggest differences is the chin advancement he did last time.  It's harder to really see the result of the mid-face advancement, but below are the pictures from her latest CT scan.  Note these are a little icky to look at, but it's the best way to explain how challenging her anatomy/skeletal structure is that we are trying to have fixed.

As shockingly underdeveloped as her left side is, you would be surprised to know just how happy Dr. Gordon was when he saw her scan.  Most of that pencil thin bone is actually from her scapula graft back in 2012 and he says it has grown significantly.  You can see the hardware that he is removing on her cheekbones and on her chin.  

Post-Surgery Update:

Surgery went very quickly this morning.  We arrived just after 6 am and she went into the OR just before 8.  For the first time she decided not to have Versed (an amnesiac that usually helps her relax and get a little silly before going back to be put under) and she really wasn't anxious at all until we finally had to say goodbye outside the OR.  Then she started crying a bit, but  after a couple hugs, she was ready to head back.

The ENT came out around 9am and gave us an update on her airway.  He said it's a grade 2 on a scale from 1 to 4 and that we want her to be at a grade 1.  Then Dr. Gordon came out at 11am and said everything went really well.  He mentioned that a number of her baby teeth came out but we were kind of hoping for that for at a least a couple of them!

Here's a pic of her just out of surgery.  After the last round, we thought she looked GREAT, so much better (and less bloody) than the last time.  There's actually a chance she could be discharged as early as tomorrow which would make Faith super happy because she would get to spend 2 nights at the Ronald McDonald House! Also if she get's out tomorrow or even on Sunday there is a possibility we could fly home on Monday instead of on Wednesday!

Well, that's enough for today, I will try to post another update tomorrow.  Time for us all to get some rest!  Thanks for reading and please leave a comment for Faith.