It's always good to start a new year with some goals and perspective. We each choose a word to focus on and hang those words in our kitchen cabinet. I love the reminder of each of us individually and all of us collectively trying to get better and face what's ahead. We had a stressful month with Brenna.
At the end of our Winter Break, I took Brenna in to have a consultation with an oral surgeon to have her wisdom teeth removed. When her panoramic x-rays came back, the surgeon requested we stay and do a follow up CT scan because it looked like her roots were growing around something on the bottom right side of her jaw. After the scan came back, the doctor informed us Brenna had a tumor. The tumor had been eating away the lower bones of her mandible and there was a hole where bone should be. She hadn't had any pain and he said that was normal. He'd had a patient before who had broken their jaw from eating a marshmallow unaware a growth had taken all bone in their jaw. We needed to schedule a surgery to remove the tumor, test for cancer, do a possible bone graft and maybe remove teeth the tumor cells had corrupted all while getting the wisdom teeth extracted as well.
That was not how we imagined our routine visit to go. I left the office thinking what just happened. We had discussed her recovery time, thankfully it wouldn't be much as long as the surgery would be all the treatment needed (depending on the tumor). She worried about dance, of course and we knew she'd have to miss some basketball half times. The doctor said he'd have our back-apparently he had experience with coaches who refused to excuse athletes. One cheer coach wouldn't be flexible for one of his patients that cheered when she required brain surgery after a stunt in cheer sent her jaw into her brain. Luckily, Brenna's coach was very understanding, despite the stress of last month.
Surgery was scary but successful! She slept with me the night before so I could wake her every 1-2 hrs to hydrate. Unfortunately, Dave had to be in Mexico for work and I reassured him it would be ok to be gone, there was nothing he could do here. Grant was here very helpful and supportive and we would be alright til he could get home.
I sat and sat in the waiting room trying to distract myself from the worry, but that is hard! She was a champ. The tumor peeled off nicely, I guess in layers and was full of bone bits and gunk. We are so happy she didn't lose any teeth with it but she did have a painful bone graft...from cadavers of human and cow bone. Not sure if she realizes that...we will keep that on the down low. And we were home for recovery! Soft foods for a couple weeks, meds around the clock, and ice packs for this gal who felt like she was wasting her life. She is not used to sitting around for days.
She had lots of kind words and support-flowers, treats, legos, meals, all of which brightened her day and lessen the load. Our follow up appointment for the biopsy hung over our head despite the smooth surgery. The tumor was benign! yay! The doctor admitted he was more concerned than he let on because he didn't want to give us too much anxiety. However, it is a tumor that has a high chance of regrowth. So, we will be heading to the office for scans every six months and take it from there. We are relieved and thankful for the outcome and know she may not be completely done with these procedures or dealing with it, but she can face whatever needs to be done. Brenna takes things in stride and while she definitely felt a bit down or bored, she bounces up and meets her challenges like few I have seen before.
We had to remind Harrison of these good life lessons as he watched his precious Rams play.
He had been crafting to support, cheering, rooting for them
with their fabulous season. The game that would take them to the Super Bowl did not end how our football fan had wanted and he might have ended up like this...
The emotions of an avid sports fan. It's a rough life. Katelee has had the best time cheering on the Aggies- football and basketball. She is living it up.
And so we start another year different than expected, but taking who we have become and what we have gone through hoping to build a good reservoir of experiences to draw from to gather strength for what's ahead. If there is anything I have learned from my now 45 years on the planet- is life doesn't unfold as planned, but we can be better through what is thrown at us and what we choose to focus on.
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