Re: Distraction update - to Cammie

[Guest guest]

Hi Cammie,

Really, trust Beau to come up with lines like that. I wish I could

take him to work next week when I'm sure I'll hear lots more things

like that.

Actually, I'm not the first patient with the distractors. My surgeon

has done a lot of them and many much larger than mine. He has even

used distraction to rebuild an entire half of a mandible after it

was resected to remove a cancerous tumor. I was just the first for

this particular kind of distractor. He had modified a more

traditional type to specifically rebuild condyles. I just wish I

could go to the conferences in person to demonstrate the distractors

since medical conferences tend to be in really nice locations.

Better yet, I wouldn't mind going to Germany to meet the

manufacturers ;-). I still think it is pretty amazing and am very

grateful for this relatively new technology. I never would have

thought that this could be done either.

My husband is the one who deserves the medal though. I have not

always been as patient as I should have been and he's been the one

to get the brunt of my frustrations. Then again, working an average

shift in the ER puts things in perspective for me and I know that I

really have very little to complain about. Thanks for ever being the

supportive one.

> The story about the " piercings " is a hoot, ! Trust your hubby

to

> come up with that one ... I think it was a great answer, though.

>

> Just goes to show -- 30 years ago, I doubt that anybody would have

> thought anything like that, looking at you.

>

> I hope that will indeed be the last turn for you, ever, and that

> those danged things will be coming out soon. If I were you, I

would

> be very, very weary of them. But you're much more patient than I

> could ever have been with all of this.

>

> And it sounds to me as though you're become a real orthognathic-

TMJ

> medical celebrity. That takes courage, too, to be the first. But I

> reckon they probably couldn't have accomplished so much for you 30

> years ago, either -- or even 10, for that matter. Congratulations

on

> sticking it out.

>

> Cammie