The Least-Clicked On Cut Tag Ever : Surgical Disasters

The Watchtower of Destruction: The Ferrett's Journal - The Least-Clicked On Cut Tag Ever: Surgical Disasters

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July 31st, 2009

03:12 pm

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The Least-Clicked On Cut Tag Ever: Surgical Disasters
Over the years, many have accused me of spilling my guts in my journal. "He practically cuts his wrists in his LJ," folks say. "Talk about oversharing."

But my friends, you do not know what overshare means until today. For I got permission from my periodontist to publish the photos he took during my gum surgery. He was documenting it for some reason, and why not give you the ultimate bit of me? I may not spill my guts for you, but I will spill my gums.

This will all be behind a cut-tag, of course, and I'm not going to post these things on my usual Flickr stream lest I squick my friends - they'll be on TheFerrett.com, which is eerily appropriate, but is also blocked by some ISPs/work firewalls. And, of course, it will go behind the least-clicked cut tag in LJ history.

The short version, for those of you just tuning in: I had severe gum disease for a decade or so, but I didn't know it because my quack dentist as a child, beloved by the whole family, assured me that "Sometimes gums just bleed." (HINT: No, they don't. Not healthy gums.) By the time we discovered how far the trauma had gone, the gum disease had eroded the bone in my upper and lower palates to the point where the teeth were rocking in their sockets every time I bit down on something hard.

Yes, that's about as unnerving as you think it is.

So I had to have ten teeth extracted, eight of my front and two of my back - and there wasn't enough bone density to reseat anything. I could get a bridge of fake teeth, as many do, but a bridge spanning a four-tooth gap costs about $10,000 and breaks every ten to fifteen years. What I want is implants - which is to say tiny screws drilled into my jaw. But there isn't enough bone left to drill screws in, because they'd just break off and fall out.

The hope, now that we've arrested the disease through constant flossing and better cleaning, is that implanting additional bone into my upper jaw will give me enough of an anchor to properly seat an implant. And because I'm apparently an example of a case, the doc took photos.

My gums, as they were going in

These were my gums, going in. In this photo, with the hair and the fangs, I look like Shelob mugging for the camera. And if you think this is unpleasant now, just wait a bit.

My gums, stripped

And here it is with the skin peeled back, revealing the tissue underneath. Now my gums have morphed from a spider-like thing to some sort of grunt unit in Starcraft. It is a little unnerving to realize that yes, even my mouth can be degloved.

The chisel, placed and ready to go.

The chisel is placed, and I assume this photo is to show exactly where the chisel should be placed, since he hasn't struck the mallet yet. (This is, incidentally, roughly when I woke up.) I do, however, have to appreciate how shiny the chisel is - look at the chrome polish on that sucker! This is clearly quality work.

And the bone is exposed.

Is it wrong that I see this and start singing, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer came down, upon his head?"

Seriously, though, this is the part that always intrigues me. My organs and bones live in darkness all their lives; they've never seen light if my body's doing its job right. Any time my body is opened up, it's like there's a secret and pulsing treasure that's been excavated and revealed. No one has ever seen this sight before. My periodontist was the first to see this part me. Secretly, I'm strangely honored that I get to see this part of myself.

The size of the chip.

This is the size of what they took out of me. It's hard to tell because of the scale, but I'd say, what? Quarter of an inch?

Look! Googly eyes!

Look! Googly eyes! It looks somehow merry and festive and ghastly, like a toy store troll went on a killing rampage.

Seriously, though, this was the part that fascinated me, because I had thought they actually would have jammed the bone, edgewise, up into the gum, sort of like trying to ram old grout around the edges of a tub. Instead, they screwed it into two separate places. Now, that doesn't seem like enough, but wait!

The not-my bone

Before I went in, I had to sign a disclaimer saying that I was authorizing the usage of demineralized bone donated from corpses. And at the time, I was like, "Why? Won't they be able to chip out enough of my own bone to make it work?" And as it turns out - I'm guessing from this photo, though wiser heads can tell me whether I've gotten it right - the bone is in the form of a kind of mulch, packed in to grow and seal together.

I'll have to ask the doctor what this is for sure on my next appointment, because it looks like he filled my mouth with delicious strawberry seeds. (EDIT: He has confirmed via email that this is, in fact, the case;

tdanaher has graciously done the Google-Fu work for me explaining bone mulch in this comment here.)

And an overlay

And then all the random bone flakes are overlaid with some tissue...

$And I\'m all sewn up$
...and I'm all sewn up. I'm always amazed by how all that messiness gets packed back inside, and it doesn't look that bad.

Actually, when I talked to my doctor, he told me I was behind the curve. "Search YouTube," he said. "People post videos of their own surgery all the time." A fact which shocks me, but I gotta say; I'd be damned curious to see what it looked like when they took out my appendix.

(113 shouts of denial | Tell me I'm full of it)

Comments

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From:	sheryl67
Date:	July 31st, 2009 07:16 pm (UTC)

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I clicked...because that's the way I roll. Honestly, not that gross to me. Huh.

Glad you are healing up though.

(Reply) (Thread)

From:	theferrett
Date:	July 31st, 2009 07:22 pm (UTC)

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Well, yeah, but that's you. It's one of the reasons I like you.

Got my fake teeth back today. Things are much better.

cadaver bone "mulch"