Racing stripe

My double chin is a bit off center

This would cover a few flaws

Well, it is Thursday.  I am out of the hospital as of last night.  I have both ears, contrary to that stupid dream I had.  I;m a little loopy.  The graft looks very strange but they tell me that is normal at first.  I'm not sure if they meant that the graft usually looks strange or that I look strange.  The later is fairly certain.  Right now the graft area in the neck is really large.  It looks like they took the double chins off of a whole room full of high priests pasted them on my neck.  Oh, well, there goes my chances at the beauty pageant.  I guess I will just have to excel in the swimsuit division.  JoLynne talked about having me wear a Arabic turbin.  That could be cool but I would want a scimitar to go with it for sure.

Racing stripe

My right thigh is....different.  They took a huge chunk out to rebuild everything.  From my hip to my knee.  And then some dang fancy stiching.  I guess the microvascular surgeon told them that he didn't think it would be possible to sew it closed.  I think that must be like operating room trash talk or something. So, two surgeons jumped on my leg with suture needles flying.  At least that is how I remember it but I was asleep.   Needless to say, they got it closed.  It's tight though and I have to be careful how I move it for now.  Shortly after I woke up JoLynne said "Do you want to see your leg?"  I was still drugged or or I probably would have said "No".  But she showed me.  The first thing I thought when I saw it was "Hey, a racing stripe!"  I can walk but very slowly and it helps to lean on something.

I am having a little trouble controlling the movement in my right eye.  Because of that, I was wearing an eye patch last night when my granddaughter Vivian called.  She took one look at me in the computer and said. "Grandpa, I want to see both of your eyeballs"  I told her why I had a bandage on my eye, she thought about that for a minute and said "Okay, I want to see grandma then"  That's okay, we will get it all figured out.  They arrive here on Saturday.  I am sure looking forward to that.

Twas the night before surgery......

View from our backyard

Me and Beautiful JoLynne 

Well, here we are in beautiful Florida waiting for surgery.  We met with Dr. Marx yesterday to talk about the surgical plan.  There has been an active discussion going on between my doctors in Provo, Houston and here.  My infectious disease doctor in Provo says that I have a psuedomonas infection in my wound adhering to the metal that was put there during the first surgery.  Psuedomonas is a nasty bacteria that is really good at evading antibiotics especially if there is metal present.  So, after some discussion it was decided that my reconstruction will be done in stages.  Stage one, tomorrow, will involve removing all of the dead and radiation damaged tissue and also debulking any tumor that they may find. and then using tissue from my tummy or thigh or both to close up the holes in my face, mouth and sinus.  At this point they are going to leave me without a right jaw bone while the infection heals up.  Honestly I believe that even without a jaw bone I will be a lot better off than I am right now.  My current joint doesn't work at all and most of my problems are from dead tissue and holes where there shouldn't be holes.  In 4-6 weeks they want me back in Houston for more T-cell therapy at a higher dose.  Then in a few months, I will come back to Miami for the jaw bone reconstruction.  At that point we may do it in titanium or perhaps grow a new jaw bone and do it with cloned bone tissue.  Dr. Marx is a pioneer in that field.

Enormous crocodiles

I don't know why, but after our visit yesterday I was just kind of discouraged and anxious.  Dr. Marx didn't tell me anything unexpected but still, that is how I felt.  Not too long after our visit our daughter Shanelle called up and talked for a while.  Cute little Vivian in the background was chiming in too.  She is so verbal for a two year old.  I can hear her in the background telling her mom "Mom, I'm constipated.  I don't want a suppository."  What two year old talks like that?  She makes me laugh.  Shanelle and Vivian are going to come to Florida about two weeks after my surgery.   I told Vivian that we might go see crocodiles.  She said, "Are they enormous crocodiles with secret plans and clever tricks?"  Her dad has been reading Roald Dahl to her and it shows.  After talking with them the shadow lifted and I felt good again.  I have a sweet, inspired daughter. (and a dang cute granddaughter)

Don't forget the ear.

I dreamt the other night that Dr. Marx forgot to re-attach my ear in the surgery.  When I woke up from anesthesia I noticed my missing ear and brought his attention to it.  He looked and shrugged saying, "Drats, I hate it when I forget those things.  Oh well, no big deal, we'll buy you a rubber one to wear.  Lots of people have those."  Dreams are so dumb but in my dream I kept wondering how I would keep my glasses on at work with only one ear.  I should have mentioned my dream to him during our consult yesterday but I just couldn't find the right time to bring it up.  I don't think he will forget my ear.  We had our consult in his office.  He has so many awards that it literally filled up all four wall from top to bottom.  He may have to retire soon, there is no more space on the walls.

In the meantime, thank you all for your prayers and faith.  JoLynne and I have come to depend on them.  Thank you.

Face lift and tummy tuck coming up

Tuesday was a very good day.

I had my scan on Friday.  Usually we can go and get the results right away, usually within 3 hours but somehow there was a hangup.  They kept having problems.  So the days went by and still no results.  I was beginning to imagine things like, "Maybe it's bad news so they don't want to tell me."  Finally I just decided that I didn't care what they told me, I know what I believe that God has told me so that information trumps all doctors.

Finally we had a appointment with our doctor on Tuesday.  We went in and he said, "I'm sure you have already read your report."  We usually do.  This time we told him that we didn't know anything about it.  He smiled and started to read.  "No change in tumor size since February scan"  JoLynne and I went out in the hall and cried.  JoLynne said she felt like going dancing.  I couldn't think of anywhere to dance at 11:00 am.  Our daughter suggested the senior citizen center.  We didn't take her up on that.

No growth is great news.  Because I have a hard tissue tumor it won't shrink for a long time, even if it is dead.  The fact that it isn't growing is awesome.  The only time in the last three years that I have had the tumor growth stop for any length of time was when they hit me with that massive radiation that I am still suffering from.  That stopped it for a year.  Frankly in that area it is still stopped.  Everything there is stopped dead...literally.  Healthy tissue and cancer alike all dead.

So now the path is clear for reconstruction...Yeah.  In about a week and a half we leave for Miami.  April 17th will be the surgery.  We arrive a few days early to do preliminary work.  JoLynne has rented a house that will be very nice to recover in.  I will be a week in the hospital and then will need to remain in the area for a month in case there are complications.

I'm pretty excited to have a complete face again.  They will be using skin from my tummy, literally they are calling it a tummy tuck.  They asked me to gain weight and I have really tried.  It hasn't been easy.  A dear friend and neighbor clued me into some stuff that body builders use.  1900 calories per serving.  WooHoo...That has helped a little.  I am now eating about 4500 calories a day and my weight is inching up 1/2 a pound a week.

I have been so blessed.  I know that the prayers of so many have made a difference in my life.  Thank you.  I love and appreciate you.

FaceTime

Well, we finally have a surgical date to reconstruct my face.  It will be April 17th in Miami.  We had hoped it would be earlier but it turned out to be complicated to schedule the operating room and all the surgeons at the same time.  So, April 17th it is.

I am really doing pretty well these days.  I even have hair.  JoLynne told me the other day my hair was pretty so I guess I was having a good hair day.  That's a nice change from a no hair days which is what I usually have.  So far it is straight and maybe a little more gray.  I think I earned it.

Most of my struggles these days are with pain.  Most of the pain is in the lower area of my jaw where all the tissue is dying.  We sincerely hope that when they cut that all out my pain will begin to improve.

I have been trying really hard to gain weight.  They need to take skin from somewhere and it seems my tummy is the most promising spot.  The micro vascular surgeon left me with a strong injunction to "Gain weight"  He wants me to stretch out that tummy so that he has more skin to work with.  I have never really paid much attention to what I eat but now I am being forced to.  I'm trying really hard to get 4000 calories a day.  It's harder than you might think, especially when it is hard to chew and swallow.  We have found that Costco vanilla ice cream has 650 calories per cup.  I can melt that and pour it in my tube.  Sometimes when I really come up short I just dump straight olive oil in my tube.  That has a ton of calories and it keeps you so regular.  When this is all done I may write a diet book "The olive oil diet miracle."  Who knows, it might be a best seller.