Grant's jaw surgery

This is more catching up!  Most of you reading this already know that Grant had major jaw surgery on April 19th at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. 

The following photos are a brief record of the process.  I still don't have a good current photo of him with his "new face," but that will follow shortly. 

1) Relaxing at 5:30 am in his very attractive hospital jammies.  He made friends with his anesthesiologist shortly after this, and got a sincere offer to spend a little time there if he's interested in the medical field in a few years.  Kind of a "job shadow" sort of thing.  I hope Grant takes him up on it!  And by the way, this hospital comes to life REALLY early in the morning.  There were a lot of people around for 5:30 am!!! 

2) This photo was also taken right before surgery.  The profile shot shows the medical necessity of the extension of his lower jaw.  His lower jaw was just flat-out smaller than the upper.  Without surgery, his bottom front teeth would have eventually destroyed the soft tissue on the palate, and stressed the jaw joint itself to the point of erosion.  And yes.....headgear usually stops the growth of the upper jaw to allow the lower jaw to "catch up".  In Grant's case, the headgear just didn't do the job.

3) Fresh out of surgery at 10:00 am, and having a great time  wishing he could die.  They gave him more meds to stop the vomiting, which knocked him out cold for a few more hours.  (Nice to know that my son inherited my vomiting reaction to narcotics.) 

The nurses kept talking about his red hair and cut the doses of all meds due to his hair color.  When asked, they informed me that red-heads are often far more sensitive to meds.  Its a genetic thing!  And fascinating!  He was "banded" shut at this point, and not in the mood to chat anyway.  He finally wrote "Leave Me Alone!" on a white board that afternoon and kept pointing to it whenever we asked him anything. 

4) This photo was taken 48 hours after surgery.  Swelling was at its worst.  His face had been packed in ice for 2 days at this point, and he was taking some nasty pain pills every 4 hours. 

At this point, Grant has one more appointment left with his surgeon and then he is fancy-free.  He thought that all his stitches had dissolved, and then spit out another handful of them just this week.  The swelling is all gone, and he hasn't taken pain pills in weeks.  He has two tiny "x"-scars on his cheeks, where the rear pins were inserted in each side.  The front pins are just below his bottom front teeth and were inserted internally.  He DOES look different, but if it saves him pain and problems in the future, it will be worth it all!!!