Consultation

Well, most of you know by now that years ago Michael suffered from a medical condition called Acromegaly (among another), which is a brain tumor that grows on your Pituitary Gland. Basically this is the disease giants have (like Andre The Giant, the wrestler), also known as Gigantism. Your pituitary controls all the growth in your body and one of his symptoms was that his body would keep growing! His shoes were like a 11 when we got married and ended up being a 14 and his ring size was originally a 10 and I think ended up being a 16! It was crazy! Regrettably though, with all that growth, he also had his jaw bone grow. When we got married 11 years ago, he had a regular overbite like most of us, which slowly turned into an extreme underbite which causes him tremendous pain. He's suffered from TMJ (google it) and headaches as a result for years, ever since. One thing you don't realize is that when you've gone through, medically, as much as we have that there are so many factors and it's overwhelming and you get to a point where truthfully, you're sick of dealing with one more thing. Then you put stuff off, which is exactly what has happened in the case of Michael's jaw. Honestly we still need to get him to a Cardiologist as well, as the tumor he had also had a tendency to enlarge the heart and harden the arteries. So, we are attempting to deal with the jaw aspect now. Michael has had a habit of popping IB Profin like candy and it needs to stop or its going to damage his stomach. We can't keep putting a "band-aid" over it and need to deal with it. Unfortunately though, this means thousands of dollars, lots of time and suffering on his part. So our first step was to consult with an Oral Surgeon who was recommended to us by one of the friends Michael grew up with in Long Beach. This guy seemed to know his stuff, and is the first of many consults to come, I'm sure. He seems to believe that Michael will need to have surgery to break his jaw and depending if it's the top or the bottom that they'll break, he'll need to have metal plates and screws put in his face to hold him back together. You know it's not a good sign when the doctor tells you himself that the first week and a half will be, and I quote "Hell." Our next step will be to consult with an Orthodontist too. Basically we'll have to work in tandem with both doctors to get everything ready for the break and re-set. Like I said, this is going to be painful in many respects. Poor Michael! It makes me sick just thinking about it, but what are the alternatives? He could just get appliances that alleviate some of the jaw pain, but don't fix the bite. He could just get braces which align the teeth to function better with the messed up bite, but that's no guarantee of pain relief either. What to do???

Pray.