Everyone’s home again, and some of it’s better now

Yesterday was an abysmal day.  L had surgery to remove a large tumor from her left mandible, a tumor that’s been there for more than a year now (it appeared while she was pregant with M, because of which we couldn’t do anything about it).  Everyone (except perhaps L) was uneasy, including the doctor, and with reason.  Consider the situation he’d been given:

“We’re sending you this patient for jaw surgery on an unidentified lump; we have no idea what it is, or whether it’s malignant or benign since you can’t biopsy osseous tumors, we don’t know what structures are involved because the CT and MRI weren’t clear at all, and it completely failed to show up on X-ray…oh, and your patient has a compromised immune system, so she’s quite likely to pick up the first opportunistic infection that comes along….”

The surgery took between two and three hours to do, and while it was successful, it wasn’t anywhere near optimal.  The surgeon was hoping to find a clearly defined tumor that he could peel away from the teeth and nerve (a nerve trunk that controls feeling and movement on the lower-left quadrant of the face runs through the area), but what he discovered was a great muddled mess of tumor and bone and tooth all together; at that point, his plan changed to “try to leave enough bone to keep the mandible in one piece, and try to dissect out the nerve without cutting or severely damaging it.”  That plan succeeded.  He carved out almost all of the tumor and bone in the area, leaving only a small ridge to connect the two sections of mandible and to provide a base for future reconstruction, and removed three teeth as well—the canine and one tooth on either side of it.  The first molar may have to be removed later as well; at the very least it’ll require a root canal.  Any reconstruction will have to wait at least a year, until we see whether the tumor grows back.  If it doesn’t, it’ll require either a second procedure to take bone from L’s hip and do a reconstructive graft, or to put in some kind of prosthetic implant to provide a base for tooth implants that would replace the ones removed by the surgeon.  Still, his post-surgical assessment was, verbatim:  “I’m 99.9% sure this is not malignant, although we’ll have to wait two weeks to get the pathology report back.”  (The report will take so long because the tumor has to be decalcified by soaking it in a solution of EDTA for days before it can be sliced for a pathological examination.)

When L was wheeled up from recovery, she looked as though she’d been several rounds with Joe Louis, with both lips swollen all to hell and gone (not surprising, since they’d been stretched with retractors as far as they could open for two hours), a lopsided, swollen look to her jaw (I wonder why that might be?), eyes that didn’t want to open very far, speech that was just more than a mumble, an oxygen mask, and an antibiotic/hydration IV drip.  M didn’t recognize Mama with all the tubes and things, and whoever-it-was sure didn’t sound like Mama either.  Oh, yes . . . I had M with me all day as well, instead of at day care where we’d expected she’d be; she’d gotten something that had her upchucking all morning, and I had to deal with a whiny, fretful baby while all the rest was happening, all day long.

Then I got home from the hospital to find a letter from my ex-employer, informing me they’ve terminated my COBRA benefits because I wasn’t able to keep up the payments (the story’s rather longer than they’re making it out to be, naturally) and lapsed for more than a thirty-day period.  Well, there are two words to that.  I think seeing a lawyer about this is in order, in the next few days.

The coding portion of my C++ final is due on Monday; I haven’t even looked at the problem assignment yet.  I’m still fretting over the project assignment that’s now more than a week overdue.  Last night I talked with A (a very longtime friend/love), and she, bless her, suggested I call her son who’s something of a hotshot C++ programmer and ask him for help—and that she’d call and smooth the way for me.  Doing kindnesses like that is one of the many reasons I count her as part of my family-of-choice.

The doctor released L from the hospital this morning; he pronounced himself surprised and pleased with her progress, and couldn’t see any reason to keep her in hospital instead of letting her recover at home.  He also told her that if she felt up to it, she could return to work on Monday, which is far sooner than I’d expected him to let her go.  (I hope she’ll give it a day or two more than that.)  At the moment she’s installed on the couch and watching a nugacious “Christmas Music Special from the Vatican” on PBS.

Captain America took control of the Phoenix Project and replaces the crystal.  Fnord.