Well, I will post it here because I did something wrong on the post. I had surgery last Feb to remove part of my jaw and replace it with my shoulder bone, which is kind of a new thing. I had excellent doctors, plastic surgeon had done this many, many, times and had never had a failure. Then came me. I had a 15 1/2 hour surgery. It took me 3 days to come out from the anesthesia. I was in intensive care for 14 days because they wanted a nurse to look in my mouth every hour to check for failure. I was not allowed to eat or even swallow water the entire time of 19 days in hospital. After coming home on the 22 day, I had a blood vessel burst and had to be rushed to the ER where they had to go back and remove dead bone and such and leave it as was. That was a 5 hour surgery. I was on narcotics and in bed so long, it took me forever to recover. I cannot chew on that side and my mouth caves in a little, but I would never go through that again unless my cancer returned. I am leaving well enough alone. It is different for everybody. Don't let someone elses easy time fool you or my hard time. I think it is just luck and how your blood vessels lock up to a new jawbone.
I now have bone loss happening because of the holes they drilled in my bone to put the new bone in. I go back in March now for a panorex to see if it is continuing. I just thank my lucky stars I am cancer free today and think how it would be if I had to worry about that too. I feel blessed to be able to live, even if I have a crooked smile.
Debbie


Partial mandibulectomy and neck dissection 2/3/07. T2NOMO.
Had 14 hour operation which included reconstruction of jaw.
Reconstruction failed. Some radiation, no chemo.