A Day to Remember

It was a big day for us today. 

You've heard me talk about Jake's issues with his mouth on occasion, today we took a major step in the direction of  "fixing" some of his issues. 

If you are easily queasy, please don't read any further, but I can't tell you how big a deal this is without explaining some of the details of what went on. 

Let's start with what caused the trouble to begin with.  Kid stuff, basically.  He was knocked on his face, broke some teeth, then that turned into a huge mess.  The dentist took the wait and see approach..actually that's being nice..I think it was more, out of sight out of mind.  This resulted in the roots of his teeth being eaten away from the white blood cells trying to heal what the dentist ignored.  Not something anyone could have known. 

Fast forward 25 years.  Several bridges later, and many painful appointments they find that the bone has deteriorated to near breaking point.  He has been okay, but, there has been a storm brewing all these years.  This isn't the first time he has had surgery to try and rebuild the bone...but today takes the cake.  

10am appointment, to reconstruct the upper jaw...by breaking his lower jaw, (with a hammer) and taking a rather good sized chunk and move it up to the upper jaw.  WHAT??? 

Those were my thoughts exactly. 

That's what they did.  They replaced the lower jaw with donor bone, and moved his bone up to the top to build a new place to put new teeth.  They have to do so pretty invasive things to get to those places, causing his face to swell, and gums to be full of stitches and a face taped up to hold things together, after being broken.  I was teasing him earlier that he looked like a Hoo from Whoville.  :) 

It makes me so sad to see what he is going through.  We hope that he will heal up and be fine, and all the bone will do what it's supposed to do. 

On a funny note:  He had to shave his go-tee so the tape would stick to the face that is holding humpty dumpty together again...anyway, it was shocking!  We all laughed and had a hard time believing it was really him...including the dog, who stared at him, a foot away from his face for about 10 minutes this morning trying to figure out who that masked man was.  Needless to say, we are all anxious for him to grow it back.  Haha.  :) 

It was all wrapped up and we were on our way home by 2:30.  Long day, for him...and for me.  The stress of the day has worn me out.  Onward and Upward!! 

We hit a major milestone today for him, and for me.  12 weeks!  What a relief to get to this point. 

Get to see the babes on Friday.  :)