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June 9, 2006
Dental update
Courtney has been experiencing a lot of pain in her mouth every time she eats from the exposed nerves in 3 teeth. Three nights ago, it seemed worse than usual, and I was concerned that something might be infected, so thankfully our family dentist was able to squeeze us in on Wednesday morning. First, he took a panoramic x-ray, and gave every tooth a thorough inspection. Surprisingly, the xray and his examination concluded that she only has ONE completely missing tooth (root and all). Aside from the missing tooth, there were 3 badly broken teeth, and a few other chipped teeth. He said that Courtney would probably only need one implant, and that he would be able to fix the other teeth himself. A couple of the broken teeth were snapped off at or just above the , but I guess there's still enough material there to work with.
Overall, it was a great prognosis. In order to fix the pain, the dentist said he had to do root canals on the 3 broken teeth. Given Dr. Park's rather stern warning about avoiding "invasive" dental work for 3 weeks, he called Dr. Park's office on Thursday to get authorization for the root canals. Thankfully, he got approval, so he came in on his day off this morning to do the root canals (During the summer, he takes Fridays off). I dropped Courtney off at 8:00, and when I picked her up 2 hours later, not only did she have the root canals, but she also had some temporary teeth. The dentist was able to use filling material to build up some semi-permanent teeth over the recent root canals. They look surprisingly good. I didn't realize how powerful that filling material was. Courtney now has most of her smile back, which if you know Courtney, was an integral part of her personality. It was a wonderful surprise.
Thankfully, he had a previous panoramic xray from a prior visit, so he was able to see a before an after picture of the damage. One of the cool things about the new panoramic x-ray was that you could see 3 of the titanium "plates". The one on her right jaw, and two on her lower right and left cheeks. They actually looked more like flattened links in a chain, or a series of connected ovals. Nothing like what I had expected.
Also, a couple days ago, Courtney realized that one of the wires from the arch bars had been missed, but thankfully it's not bugging her too much. The dentist was planning to remove it today, but ran out of time. We still have a normal cleaning scheduled for next Tuesday, so we'll get it removed then.
Courtney continues to make progress. While my reports have always been optimistic, and rightfully so. The fact remains that she's probably not going to be operating above 80% for a few more months. She can see pretty well looking straight forward, but her right eye muscle quickness and peripheral vision is still pretty impaired. Also, while she looks fantastic, especially now that she has some teeth, there are going to be some permanent physical changes to her face that will obviously take some getting used to, and we're still praying for continued recovery. Obviously this is emotionally difficult for Courtney. We would both appreciate your continued prayers. Seriously, I say this a ton, but not nearly enough, we have been truly touched by the tremendous love and support you have all shown for our family during this time. THANKS!
Posted by mark at 1:47 PM | Comments (3)
June 2, 2006
Adios arch bars
The infernal arch bars are gone. We just returned from our latest visit to Dr. Park's office. The procedure took about 30 minutes, and was pretty uncomfortable, but Courtney is thrilled to have all of the metal out of her mouth. It turns out that they are indeed "wired" and not stitched through the gum and above the molars. She has some other stitching in her mouth from where they went in surgically for the other repairs that will eventually fall out on it's own. Initially, I wasn't sure if that was related to the wiring of the jaw or not.
As it turns out, we AREN'T going to do another surgery on her eyeball. Dr. Park was concerned that any "futzing" with the eyeball could easily upset the level, and cause double vision. He said that usually a sunken eyeball is also lower, so the procedure does two things at once: move the eyeball up and out. In Courtney's' case, the eyeball is only sunken and not lower. Also, I guess it's pretty difficult to force an eyeball to move forward against the will of the eye muscles, and there's a good chance that it won't work. Given that likelihood, and the possibility of creating residual issues, it was a pretty easy decision. If they had done the surgery, the reason for doing it sooner rather than later is that the muscles in the eyeball will contract to the new sunken position and be much more difficult to move later.
Regardless, we aren't going to do the procedure, and are perfectly happy with the results. While I'm sure Dr. Park would have preferred to not have a slightly sunken eyeball, he's VERY pleased with the overall results of his first surgery. As he was leaving the exam room, he took a look back at Courtney and said something to the effect, "Sorry, I'm just patting myself on the back -- she really looks fantastic." That really helps to underscore the nature of the reconstruction and how far Courtney has come.
We're allowed to schedule a teeth cleaning and an x-ray with the dentist, but he's not allowed to do any extractions, impressions, or other invasive dental work for 3 weeks. We forgot to ask about when Courtney can start chewing again, but I'm betting it will coincide with that time frame. I'm planning to give them a call.
We're going to see Dr. Park in 2 months, and he mentioned that the next step with him will be some minor cosmetic procedures on two of the scars - the one on her lip, and possibly one on her nose. He seems pretty happy with the big scar over her eyebrow. I'm not really sure how soon that will be.
Courtney has continued to open her mouth more and more, but she can still only open it about 30-40%. She is concerned that she might not be able to open it fully, but I think we'll get there eventually. It was somewhat disappointing to know that they can't correct the eyeball depth, but knowing that we don't have another surgery and that there isn't the possibility of any setbacks from the surgery, is a welcome consolation. Courtney continues to get stronger and stronger every day. She's still experiencing some dizzy spells, and doesn't really trust her right eye yet, so she's pretty far away from driving.
Posted by mark at 11:49 AM | Comments (3)
June 1, 2006
Interview with me
Here's a link to the interview with me 4 days after the accident:
04-18-2006: Interview with Mark (14 MB)
I'm posting "with assumed courtesy" of:
WSLS News Channel 10
401 3rd Street SW
Roanoke, VA 24011
540-981-9110
Aired on 4-18-2006
[ UPDATE: I've encoded these vides to the AVI format which requires the DivX codec. You can download it from this page:
http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/
Actual link to file is here: (http://download.divxmovies.com/XviD-1.1.0-30122005.exe)
Or you can download it here:
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/divxcodec.html#downloads
Actual link to file is here: (http://www.digital-digest.com/software/download.php?sid=622&ssid=0&did=1)
After installing the codec, you'll need to restart Windows Media Player. Thanks Nate! ]
Posted by mark at 1:03 PM | Comments (4)