It's the last day of 2009, cold and blowing rain, and I am over-cooking oriental flavor ramen noodles for my oldest son...the son who had a complete, original model jawbone on Monday, but who now has three-quarters of the jawbone God provided him in 1982 and one-quarter new, finest-kind titanium plate that commences right below his right ear and terminates at his chin. As a result of his new body parts--and the 4-hour-plus operation that preceded it--he is frighteningly swollen from his eyes down, in pain and forbidden to chew for the next six weeks. Anything he eats must be "mechanically soft"...blended, pureed, mashed or otherwise whizzed in a machine. After two days of smoothies, tomato soup and ice water, he is craving something with more flavor...which is why I'm boiling these noodles way longer than the instructions recommend. He isn't yet able to manage scrambled eggs, or even rice--but thankfully he can swallow mushy ramen noodles.
However, despite the horrible anticipation of the surgery, the pain, the long recovery and the inconvenience and downright yuck factor of it all, we have found so much to be thankful for:
- a benign tumor in the bone (ameloblastoma) as opposed to something malignant and sinister
- the great doctors and staff at the hospital and the tremendous care he got
- the fact that he is home and recovering quickly--and that I am able to stay home and take care of him
So at the end of this interesting year--and at the beginning of Britain's journey through this surgery and the bone grafts to follow, and the new year at hand--I've begun this blog as a journal of his convalescence and maybe--just MAYBE--a chronicle of my own journey.
God bless us, every one!
