Back from vacation, the garden has been torn out, the flowers are slowly freezing to death...winter is coming.
There have been a few changes in the surgical plan since my last posting. A couple of additional referrals have completely nixed the idea of TMJ replacement; there is simply too much adjacent oesteonecrosis to take the risk.
The "final" plan now is to do a modified temporal/mastoid process resection. They will effectively be removing a baseball sized portion of my skull around and above my ear, and replace it with some form of acrylic material, not dissimilar to a bowling ball, from what I'm told.
Once the necrotic bone is gone, they will repair the damage to my inner ear and hopefully restore some hearing.
Now the challenge is going to be "when"?
it will involve surgeons from two different cities, and coordinating schedules is going to be the challenge. All I have to do is drive 9 hours and show up for the party!
I'll update things when we finally have a date
Wayne