The insurance saga continues. In spite of the customer service representative’s best efforts to resolve my issue, I still have to file an appeal. I’ve been working on it and am hopeful that it will eventually be approved given all the information I now have that confirms it should have been covered initially.
As I mentioned last, I had finished my oral antibiotics. I made it 5 days before the swelling and intense pain returned. I went back to the surgeon that day in the late afternoon. The hole was still there! He cultured the site and then said that I needed to be opened up again to have the areas cleaned out. I asked when this would happen and his response was first thing tomorrow morning. I restarted another 10 day course of antibiotics that night. The next morning, under general anesthesia, my cheek was opened up and cleaned out. The opening that had been there for months still went all the way down to my jaw bone. Because of that, the hardware from my lower left jaw was removed. This time the incision was completely sutured closed. Fortunately it was outpatient and I was able to go home. That night, the incision was the most pain I had, and was relieved with oragel. Applying the oragel was the first time I saw the new incision. It started at my canine and went all the way to my last molar before making a 90 degree turn an inch up my cheek. In total, it was about 2-1/2 inches long. The next morning, it felt like my jaw had been broken where the hardware was removed and a small hematoma had formed. In addition to pain meds, I also started applying arnica to the swelling. Would you believe it never bruised my skin? I’ll take the little wins any day.
The incision continues to heal nicely. I have no more holes in my mouth, and for the first time in months I can chew food on my left side. My antibiotics finished Saturday. I am reluctantly optimistic. I feel some tightness in the left,but can’t see any swelling. I’ve had small twinges of pain but can massage them away which indicates they are muscle related.
I’m hoping everything continues in the right direction because I have finally started making plans again. This coming weekend we will be hosting my daughter’s basketball team for their end of season party. They had a great season being undefeated league champs. Their overall record was 25 and 5. They were bumped up to division 2A for CIF playoffs and lost their first game by 1 point. It was an insane game. My daughter got an amazing steal with less than 3 seconds left and threw it 2/3s of the way down the court to her teammate who missed the basket!!! So close! Anyway, the following weekend will be taking a trip to Vegas to celebrate a friend’s 50th birthday.
Aside from my jaw, my ankle has been giving me some trouble. I started having horrible grinding sounds that could be heard 10 feet away when I would walk. It turns out one of the screws in my plate is loosening,just barely but still coming out. Nobody is sure if it is related to the jaw infection as that sort of thing can happen. The down side is that for most people hardware can be removed and they can continue on with normal life. That’s not the case for me. I have no ligaments left in my high ankle to have been repaired. They were shredded. That means I will always need some sort of hardware in its place to hold me together. Things aren’t bad enough to have to do anything right now, and it gives my doctor hopefully at least a year or so to think of a plan before anything needs to be done. I opted for hyalularonic acid injections to give the area more lubrication which in theory should decrease the grinding which should slow the screw working its way out farther. I’ve had 2 if the 3 injections now and the grinding has really subsided. Only time will tell how long I can hold off.
On the back side, I am still wearing my brace full time. I still haven’t had a recent set of X-rays because of everything else going on. I’ve been really good about getting my hours in, though I didn’t wear it the day or night after my last jaw surgery. That’s really been the only exception.
Barring any further complications, my next oral surgeon and orthodontist appointments are next month. I’ll let you know if anything changes.
