Well, November is here and it's time for Taylor to get his new implant. After having a 3-D CT Scan done, a replica was cast of Taylor's skull and a team of engineers made an implant to mimic the right side of Tay's face. We made a trip to Albuquerque to look at the model of the implant and give the thumb's up. You will find the replica with the model (in red).
Taylor decided to grow his beard for "No Shave November", thus the hairy face. He felt that he would end up losing all the facial hair for surgery so he cut down to this lovely mustache...
Yikes...i know!!Moving onto the evening of Monday, November 28, Bryan and I drive to Albuquerque to meet with Taylor and the sweet boy was clean shaven. Hallelujah! I didn't take a picture, but he was back to the baby face which I love. He did it for his pre-op appointment with Dr Escudero, and I for one was thrilled!!
Tuesday am and Dr E came in to check on Taylor before meeting him in surgery.
After the picture, off came the fluffy hat and now the shaving begins (much to Taylor's horror--he had decided to grow his hair, too) then the sharpy came out to mark the areas where he would be cutting and the implant would be covering. You can see the remnants of the past surgery where the bone paste was applied and turned rocky.
Half of the implant will be inserted through the side of the temple and the other inserted through his mouth and up into his cheek are and screwed down with 2 screws--careful to steer clear of the sinuses. Surgery lasted about 2 and a half hours and we were told it was a great success by Dr. Escudero. Taylor was pretty swollen post-op and somewhat queezy.
After sending a picture of him to his sister, Lauren, she replied with a sweet note and a picture from Taylor's favorite niece saying "We will get through this together". Taylor grinned as big as he could at th
at point at the sweet look-alike picture that he got from his sister.
The giant pillow on his head is an icepack...
All was well for about the first hour, and then the nausea and the vomiting hit---ugh. This continued for the rest of the afternoon. Jump ahead for a few hours---Taylor's nurse, Allison thought maybe it would be best for Taylor to be admitted as an inpatient....to spend the night since they couldn't get him settled. A phonecall with the Dr and that plan was nixed. He felt that if we could just get him transported it would be less chance of infection and of course the bed would be MUCH more comfortable. The Dr upped the drugs and Taylor was settled long enough for us to load him up and get him to the hotel. One more time losing his cookies and he was then settled for the night! Hallelujah!!
After an appointment the next morning where his turban (and alot of the pressure) was removed
we made the trip to Clovis.
Taylor hit the couch with Oliver and this is where he has remained. He will have 6 days to recoop before he will catch a flight home via Great Lakes Airlines to prepare to go back to work managing Lids Hat Store. Check back for updates on our guy to see how he is doing. Oh! And btw...he ate 1/2 a can of chicken noodle soup tonight and kept it down!! Now that's what we call PROGRESS!!
