So now we're a couple of weeks into this mess. In this picture, you can see that his tongue is healing well. Some of the stitches have already dissolved, but a couple of them are still hanging in there (the purple things). You can also see the wire that is holding his mandibles together, and that was also used to help sling his lip back up on to his chin. We are definitely making progress here. Unfortunately, we do have some problems.
There's that upper jaw that I didn't even want to think about. Then we have the outer sides of his jawbones. This isn't in focus very well (sorry), but that white stuff in front of my thumb, and between the red gum-line and lower lip, is bare bone. On day #1 when I cleaned this up and sewed his cheek lining to what was left of his gums, it just didn't hold. I can't say that I'm terribly surprised by this, since it was full of black sand. I can say that I was disappointed.
I called the University of Missouri and talked to Dr. Meadows again. "Well, it may granulate in [fill in from side to side on its own], or you could try surgically reattaching things, now that the infection is controlled. I'm worried that the bone might just be dead from the trauma. Then nothing will work." Now there's a little ray of sunshine after all my hard work.
Speaking of all my hard work, there's another problem. We still have a long way to go, and we have exceeded the owner's top-dollar budget. Time to quit… but he's getting better! I can't quit now. I mean I could, but I don't want to. I want to see how this turns out.
So we made a deal with the owner. She paid her top-dollar estimate, and Dizzy becomes our hobby. When he gets well she can still have him back.
With weeks to go before he's well (if he does get well), I can't afford too many hobbies like this one.
To Be Continued…