Surgery Delayed

No surgery today.  They want to do dental surgery at the same time they scrape out the dead cheekbone, so it will be week after next.  This way, she can go to EFY @ BYU next week, which is really important to her.

Nerve Dr. said her facial nerves are healing well and there is nothing more needed but time.  Her smile is returning, as is her ability to raise her right eyebrow.  She did say, though, that KT needs to exercise her jaw by keeping her mouth closed completely for 5 - 15 minutes twice a day to prevent permanent locking of her mouth in an open posture.  Pam was glad to have validation of her long efforts to get KT to work on that!

Pain today at a level 6, which is better than the 8 she reported earlier in week.  We'll be home Friday evening.

A little progress, perhaps?

The last 24 hours have been eventful, and we feel like there is some progress being made.  First, her braces came off, thanks to Dr. Brett Christensen, who felt that was necessary.  Then, today, she had a CT scan - and, miracle of miracles, the radiologist was able to "stick" her with an IV the very first try!  That almost NEVER happens because she is such a hard stick!  We thought she wasn't going to have to be stuck at all because she has a PIC line, but, come to find out, her type of PIC is not a "powered" PIC, meaning, you have to put the stuff through manually and cannot use a powered pump.  Evidently, the contrast used in a CT has to go through a powered pump.

Anyway, the CT didn't show anything more than the previous one did.  Which means, either there is no abscess, OR her anatomy is so different that it can't be seen.

The decision is that they will put her under anesthesia (date/time not yet determined), to look under her lip and into her cheekbone area, to ensure there is nothing there.  I am happy about that, because Dr. Gordon is sure there is some dead tissue in there, even though these local Drs.  think her problems are teeth related.

While she is under anesthesia, and now that the braces are off, they will do some cavity fills to give her a new start on oral hygiene.  KT says she feels a "bit better" today, so that is encouraging.  They may also change antibiotics.

That is the latest! Tomorrow is the last day of school, so we got her through another school year successfully.

Braces

KT's braces are coming off tonight.  Dr Christensen in St George believes they need to come off for 2 reasons:  to promote healing and to allow more definitive CT scan to pin-point the abscess.

Her pain has increased every day this week, so I finally got a hold of Dr Gordon in Ohio.  He thought the Primary Children's team had already gone in and cleaned out the abscess surgically.  He said that's the only way this will resolve, so we'll get that scheduled at Primary's as early this week at possible.

MRSA

We got the unfortunate word today that the infection in KT's jaw bone is MRSA, meaning it is resistant to some pretty high-powered antibiotics.  This is disturbing, to say the least.  The Drs. want to quickly do root canals on two more teeth, so we're doing those tomorrow.  This will eliminate some of the potential harboring of infection.  Then, they'll probably go in and remove the dead bone material that didn't take from her previous surgeries, as that goop also harbors infection.

They put her on a second antibiotic today, Septra, to supplement the one that's going through her PIC line.  Septra is taken orally. 

We're doing a fast for her on this coming Sunday, to plead for the Lord's intervention to help her get past this infection.  It will take all our faith, and the best efforts of the best doctors around, to accomplish this.  KT is in good spirits.

I'm sending Pam to Michigan tomorrow for 2 weeks to help Cami with her new baby, which was due today.  It hasn't come yet, but this ensures she'll be there in time for the birth, and be able to help handle the other hooligans.  It will be good for her get away and be able to focus on something other than KT's medical issues for awhile.  If we end up doing the surgery next week, we may bring her home early. 

Thanks for your continued prayers!

- Glenn

Ertapenem

Pam, Katie & Lyndsey are home tonight.  The PIC line was installed today, but no surgery.  Evidently, there is some disagreement between the oral surgeon (Siddiqi) and the dental craniofacial surgeon (Yamashiro) as to whether to do surgery right away, or give the IV antibiotics a chance to work for awhile first.  So they'll be discussing things next week and come to an agreement as to which way to go.  They do, however, want ALL the upper teeth on the right side to get root canals. 

The antibiotic she's on through the PIC line is a new one (at least I've never heard of it), called ertapenem.  She'll have 100cc's once a day.  We need to check on how this affects kidneys.

Time for bed!  It's good to have everyone home for a bit.  Thanks for your prayers.

- Glenn

PIC

The infectious disease Dr. in Provo confirmed that KT has polymicrobial osteomyelitis in her jaw bone, which is very serious.  She will undergo surgery on Friday to clean off the bones, and to install a PIC line, through which she'll receive antibiotics for 6 months.

Pam is very pleased that the Dr. in Provo (I don't have his name yet) was able to evaluate her so thoroughly and come up with the needed plan, and that he had access to an oral surgeon experienced enough to tackle the issue without us having to go back to Cincinnati.

We pray this man will be guided by the Lord to do exactly what's needed, and to get the road to recovery started.  This has been SUCH a rough road, and poor KT has suffered so much!  Thank you all for your prayers and faith - I know she will yet beat this.

All our love,

- Glenn & Pam, Lyndsey & KT

Infection

Please continue to pray for KT.  Her facial infection persists, and she continues to be in pain.  We are at a loss.

Turning the Corner

It appears that KT has finally "turned the corner" in beating this face infection.  She still doesn't feel back to normal, but the significant pain has eased enough that she could make it all the way through Church yesterday to celebrate Easter.  At the end of it, she was ready to immediately head for home, though! 

Dr. Bethers was able to successfully do the root canal in her back molar, thus saving the only chewing surface she has on that right side.  We are VERY grateful to him!  There is still one more tooth that probably needs a root canal, which we will try to get done next week.  The blood tests did show that her kidney function was not normal, so they took her off the strong antibiotics to allow the kidneys to rebound.  She'll have more blood taken today to ensure they are bouncing back.

The hyperbaric dives seem to be helping too, so we're thankful for that.  We had to remove her from 2 of her classes (one of them JROTC), in order for her to be able to keep up, since she has these "dives" every single weekday.  But now she won't be quite so overwhelmed, since she's still also catching up from the 1st semester when she was in the hospital.  This has been a really tough year, academically, but I'm proud of how well she's done at keeping and catching up. 

She's done with driver's ed, so tomorrow is her actually driving test.  We're going out to practice parallel parking today.  : )

Thanks to all of you for your love, prayers, and gifts.  They have helped her keep up a good attitude.  We send our love.

- Glenn

Still, the pain lingers

We keep thinking we've turned the corner, and found a solution for the facial infection, but it keeps on keeping on.  The poor girl is suffering tremendously.  We finished another round of anitbiotics 36 hours ago, and it seems like the pain and swelling are returning more strongly, so we're trying to get that renewed today.

Friday, the decision had been made to pull her back top molar, assuming infection is lingering there.  However, we realized, that if they pull that tooth, she'll be missing her ONLY chewing surface!  Which would complicate things even further.  There is also the concern that pulling that tooth might bring too much bone with it, and she doesn't have any bone to spare.  It might even break her jaw, which would be terrible.

So, Monday, the decision was altered to first do a root canal on eye tooth #6, which is where the visible swelling seems to come from.  While he's in there, he's going to see what, if anything, he could do toward a root canal on the rear molar - even though he has told us before that there just isn't room to get in there to do a root canal.  (We're getting a 2nd opinion on that issue today from a different endodontist.)  The first guy's aide told us there was another procedure, which I can't recall the name of, where he could go in from the side, by drawing back a flap of gum to get at the diseased root from a more accessible angle.  But now we're getting word that he doesn't want to even attempt that.

So, if this root canal on the eye tooth doesn't resolve the infection, we're likely going to have to pull that tooth and hope for the best.  We have GOT to get rid of that infection!  Her entire body hurts (which is another mystery to the Drs.  They've checked her blood several times and it doesn't show any sepsis, but something is spreading through her body). 

Her school work is suffering big time due to all this, and that's while she's trying to still catch up in English and Math from the 1st semester, which she got a way late start on.  Needless to say, we're all feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. 

We send our love, and ask for your continued prayers.

- Glenn

Diving

KT is going in just now for her 3rd of 40 scheduled hyperbaric chamber "dives."  The intent is to force oxygen into her cells via one and a half atmospheres (we live under one atomosphere), to promote healing.  I had this same thing done to help save my leg 4 years ago.  It is a painless procedure; each dive takes 2 hours.  We think we're seeing results already, but can't be sure yet.  She is still in a lot of pain.

We think another tooth needs a root canal, and are trying to convince the endodontist to start that process.  We've also been in touch with Dr. Gordon in Cincinnati, and may have to rush back to Ohio to have him open her up and clean out the infected area.

Please continue your prayers for this suffering little girl!

Love,

- Glenn