[warning: graphic surgical details]
Last Friday, I took a day off to go to my annual check-up at UCSF Medical Center. Why, you may ask, would I travel 40 miles to San Francisco for a check-up? Well, a few years ago, I had a couple surgeries done at UCSF. I was diagnosed with ameloblastoma, a benign but agressive tumor usually found in the mandibular area. It is potentially lethal if left unchecked.
The first surgery was for extraction of the tumor, which involved removing a third of my lower jaw. The second one was for reconstruction. This involved taking a piece of my hip bone and a piece of a rib and using them to reconstruct my lower jaw. A titanium plate was also used to hold everything together. Now you’re probably curious if I’ve ever set off airport metal detectors with that thing in my head. Well I did check once and nope, nothing went off.
The titanium plate I can actually do away with. And this was one of the reasons for my check-up. My doctor wanted to know what I wanted to do next, whether or not to have the plate taken out and have some teeth implanted (I only chew on one side of my mouth). I’m going to have to wait on the third surgery. The doctor has actually been waiting for an answer from me since the year 2000 but I missed my last two annual appointments. I explained to him that I went through the whole dot-com roller coaster ride so I’m only on Medi-Cal right now. He says that additional surgeries certainly can wait and I can elect to bypass them altogether if I wanted to.
The other reason for the check-up was to find out if any of the abnormal cells have come back. Well, thank God they haven’t. The radiologist, upon checking my x-ray, said that my jaw was a “work of art.”
They did do a great job. You probably think I’m horrific-looking after going through all this but as you can probably see from my webcam pics, I look pretty normal, don’t I? I’m truly grateful to the Lord for the way he guided the hands of the surgeons and for restoring me unto full health. I can eat whatever food I want, no matter how tough. My speech is unaffected. My jaw line, although slightly asymmetrical, looks just fine. There was a risk of losing my ability to feel and taste with my tongue but it has been saved as well. God is good.
