Hi Everyone,

I am writing about my 81 year old mother, who has been treated for cancer in her jaw for the last year and a half. Six months after 3 chemo treatments and 7 weeks of radiation the cancer recurred (she continues to smoke). On July 10 she had surgery to remove most of her lower right mandible, some tissue from the floor of her mouth and a large section of her cheek. He replaced all this with a graft of bone, skin and tissue from her lower leg. The surgeon also removed all of the lymph nodes on the right side of her neck and performed a tracheotomy.

Because she had so much plaque in her veins, the doctor is worried that the flap will fail and they have even used leeches to try to get the blood moving through the graft. Four days after her surgery she is still in ICU and is heavily sedated because she seems extremely agitated.

Has anyone else experienced this type of surgery? Assuming the flap "takes", what will the next few weeks be like for my mom? If the flap fails, what then?