More good news, and a new surgery

So today's appointment went very very well. The doctors say the tissue and bone graft is ready (yay!), so they did the impressions for the denture that will go in after the surgery. It is not very easy, since that whole area in front is sunken in, and it took a few tries. They have to stick a plate in there that is filled with this gluey-type substance that hardens into the impression, and my mouth has sunken in so far that it is very tight and hard to open up very far. My bottom lip ended up cracking and splitting from trying to get it in- it gets extremely dry these days and with all that stretching it just couldnt take it, so I had to get it to stop bleeding which was a bit nerve wracking. But in the end they think they got a good enough impression to make a good denture.

So I am looking at surgery here in the next few weeks sometime! Already. It always feel like this happens, where I think I have lots of time and then it is here all of a sudden, I suppose that's good in terms of me being anxious and nervous but not so good too because it is coming up so fast and I still have to make arrangments for help with my kids, and some help for myself. This surgery will be them going in and 'releasing' my lip that is pulled so far in because of scarring, they will have to do skin grafts over it all once they go in and open it up again as well but it will be out patient surgery- though none the less painful for it I am sure (although it will be all done inside of the mouth so no more outside scars- that is good).

Unfortunately they do not think I have enough tissue in the roof of my mouth to only take it from there, so I will have to have it taken from two places- the roof of my mouth as well as one of my buttocks (I love that word, shame I dont get to use it too often). That isnt good because of course it means two skin graft spots to heal from but I am really worried about the roof of the mouth because they basically will peel away that whole top layer, leaving all of the bone exposed and it sounds like it is going to be incredibly painful to heal from. I also worry about healing time, as the mouth harbors so many germs and bacteria already. But they say the roof of the mouth is the best way to go, because it is exremely tough and is well vascularized so it is good for the skin graft, or they'd probably just do it all from the buttock (hee hee) to minimize some of the discomfort. All I can do is trust them again and hope that this surgery goes more smoothly than the last. Really I am starting to love all my doctors and think of them as a bit of a family seeing as how its been 3 years now we've known each other.

I'll update when I know more, they are supposed to call me with a surgery date and then there is also all of that fun pre-op stuff that needs to be scheduled as well.