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.