Just a spoonful of sugar.

There is one thing I want to clear up, I am not a lemon hater.  I actually really like all things lemon-- pie, bars, limoncello......but, we can all agree that it is the sugar involved in those items that makes everything taste so good.  Well my friends, we finally got a little bit of sugar at the end of last week.

On Friday we went to the oral surgeon's office (#2 was gone on a mission trip) to get the initial biopsy results, only to be met by our dear friend HIPAA.  Oh, the joys when your children turn 18 and in the eyes of the healthcare community are adults (that live under your roof, eat all your food and expect you to pay for their college).  But I digress-- after a few frantic phone calls we got a hold of him and he was able to give us permission to talk the surgeon.

I want to stop here and thank EVERYONE who has been praying for us the last few weeks (that seemed like months) for we know that God worked in this situation. Three weeks ago we were facing the somewhat grim prospect of #2 having to have his jaw resectioned--actually having to remove part of his mandible, accompanied by an immediate reconstruction most likely using bone from somewhere else in his body.  All signs pointed to this very scary diagnosis-Ondontgenic Myxoma.  Right?  I have never heard of it either.  The occurrence rate is .07% per million people.  Every oral surgeon who looked at the films, the oral pathologist that read the films--everything coming back was confirming this diagnosis, they were preparing us for the worst.  Everything was up in the air, where we would we have to go for the surgery? How long would the recovery take? How on earth will he be able to start college in the Fall?

And then, God. We are so happy to say that pathology came back instead as a Giant Cell Granuloma--still uncommon, less than 7% of all benign jaw lesions-- but at least there are surgeons in the area who have dealt with them before.   So what does this mean? Because it was caught before it became symptomatic and there was only minor intrusion into his mandible, it can be surgically excised without with having to remove the bone completely. He will have to have surgery to cut it out, he will lose some bone, he will lose a tooth or two (which will be fixed by implants down the road). BUT, his mandible will stay intact.

We are so thankful for this turn of events and thankful for all of you lifting us up in prayer. The timing is still being sorted out, it has to happen within the next few months, so we are deciding whether now or December would be the ideal time. We will keep you posted.

That little bit of sweetness has definitely made the medicine go down a bit easier.

So. Many. Lemons.

So, my last post revolved around child #3 and her new T1D diagnosis. Shortly after that we attended the funeral of a dear friend who died way too young, mourned with his grieving wife and children and were grateful for life even with all of its unexpected twists and turns.

Let me re-emphasize that statement: We are grateful. Rest assured, we are all ok and dealing.  If you know me fairly well, you know I am a fixer, whatever the problem is, we are going to deal with it.  (Not that I don't have occasional moments of "are you kidding me", but they are brief and then it is game on.) Everything we are dealing with has something that can be done for it.  Modern medicine rocks.

Enter Child #2: 18 years old, getting ready to head off to college and all the new challenges that await him. So many things to cross off the list before we send him off:  Attend orientation: check. Register for classes: check. Send in final transcripts: check. Buy things for dorm room: check.  Get wisdom teeth out: no check.

So, we sent #2 to get his teeth cleaned, and have an x-ray taken in prep for his wisdom teeth removal-a bonus, he only has 3, we can save a few bucks!

Cue melodramatic music:
But wait, what is that on his films??  There is something in his left mandible, why don't we get a better picture?  Let's schedule another scan.

OH, things don't look any better on that film, maybe a little worse.  We need to send this out to a specialized radiologist.

Results back in from radiologist, it is one of 4 things-- but we need a biopsy to confirm. (right now everything is pointing to benign, so there's that)

Biopsy done.

And now we wait.

SO. MANY. LEMONS.  Someone, please send me some sugar.