Well to start off the good news is that my wisdom tooth removal went well and is mostly healed. :) I don't have a great range of motion back in my jaw yet but ah well.

The bad news is that the biopsy I mentioned in my last journal had the results come back today. It's an ameloblastoma; a tumor but a benign one thankfully. The surgery for this will be to cut away that portion of my jaw - most of the left half - and replace it with a metal plate and bone graft. The bone will either come from part of my hip, or they'll remove an entire fibula from one leg and use part of that. Each method has its own pros and cons so we haven't yet decided which route to take. A hip graft would be generally less invasive but spread out over two surgeries with a three month gap in the middle, and the staying power of the graft in the jaw isn't as good. (Doc says about 70% of the grafted bone would stay, opposed to 95% if we used the fibula.) We touched on a new method of protein/stem cell compounds called BMP but he seemed to favor the fibula or hip methods.

A surgery date hasn't been scheduled yet but we're expecting it to be in about a month or so. Recovery should take a couple of months and will involve jaw healing and some physical therapy on my leg to get back into walking if we go with the fibula. At best I'll just have a few new scars to add to Wyla (I should just make her a damn cyborg at this point...), at worst I suppose maybe losing feeling and motion in my lower lip and having a weak leg. Losing two of my back teeth on that side is a given but won't be noticeable to anyone and won't really affect eating. Jawline chin-to-ear scar is a given, as well as wherever they harvest the bone from, but eh. On the grand scheme of things I don't give a shit about scars. (Remind me of this with a slap when I inevitably whine about cosmetic scarring further down the line, good grief.)

To take my mind away from the fears of surgery I'm mostly focusing on being mad and/or bummed that this is going to put a halt to a lot of my plans. (Nothing like some First World Problems to make you feel better, right?) I'll likely be in recovery over my first wedding anniversary and Ceb's birthday which blows. I won't be able to ride my motorcycle for months; face swelling will last far past the other recovery and that means no helmet, and I'm not dumb enough to ride without it. Gym won't be possible for a while and I'm gonna lose a lot of my progress. My green card is about to come through but it's kind of soured by all of this and the fact that travel home will probably be postponed too. An amazing job lead with police dog training will be put on the backburner.

I realise that this is just temporary and eventually I can get back to all of these things but it's a big blow. Trying just to be in a "this will be a period of x months which will suck but after that everything will be normal" mindset but I will admit that possible long-term effects are a worry.


"I don't give a shit I'm here about commissions"
That's the spirit. ¦3 Basically I'm in no frame of mind to really, er, consider commissions at the moment and likely won't be until this is over. If I've told you at some point that I'll let you know about future openings then sorry; no can do any more. I'm completely clearing my plate of any obligations. There are no commissions outstanding which have been paid for so hopefully you guys on the mental waiting list of mine won't be too mad.

I may occasionally post a YCH or something..? Having a pose already down with inspiration raring to go is a great help and might be a good way for me to unwind pre (or post) surgery whilst helping to rebuild the inevitable cavern this is going to put in our savings.

♥