Thank goodness you have the Segway dealership to throw yourself into! What a brilliant piece of foresight!

Foot drop...Were you warned that that might be a result of harvesting the fibula? It has been suggested that I consider maxillary reconstruction with the same procedure. I'm more than a little bit hesitant. It seems like a really major surgery. In your case, I suppose that you had no option. With the upper jaw, I have a semi-satisfactory solution to the loss of the bone in that I must now wear an obturator to fill the opening created by removal of the maxilla and part of the hard palate.

Reconstruction could close that opening with skin and muscle, and then provide a bony jaw for support of some sort of bridge, or even, possibly, permanent implants.

I would love to snap my fingers and have this end result. I am just not sure how to voluntarily commit to such a huge surgery, when I am doing ok with the obturator. I do hate it, though, and without it I can neither eat nor converse.


Colleen--T-2N0M0 SCC dx'd 12/28/05...Hemi-maxillectomy, partial palatectomy, neck dissection 1/4/06....clear margins, neg. nodes....no radiation, no chemo....Cancer-free at 4 years!