I hope I'm not unwelcome here. My 19 year old son has a benign jaw tumor -- osteoblastoma. It is very, very rare. A bone tumor in his lower left jaw...

The oral surgeons have pulled all of his lower left teeth (5 in all) and plan to remove the left lower jaw along with a wide margin as this type of tumor has a 20% recurrence.

We have an appointment (pre-op) 5/2. They haven't really told us much except they will take a bone graft from his hip and have ordered a titanium plate custom made from his CT scan. They plan to give him implants (but no details as to whether that is happening as part of the surgery or not).

Surgery is 5/8. He was diagnosed in February.

He is being treated by the oral surgeons at the University of Florida Dental College (the professors and head of the department).

What to expect? I'm guessing 8 hours or more surgery...

Will he be in the hospital a day? Days? Weeks?

Will he be able to talk? (They have said they are going to try to do this from inside his mouth, but if they need to they'll go in through the neck)...

Will he have a trach? A feeding tube?

I'm "mom" and I'm scared to death. I'd like to know what to ask the doctors -- they said they only see 1 - 3 osteoblastomas a year (which means no one else in the state sees them at all -- this tumor is less than 1% of bone tumors and of that less than 1% of the 1% are in the jaw)...

Any information, thoughts, wisdom (what to ask?) advice -- anything at all -- gratefully appreciated. Thank you.