Follow up at Hopkins

Recently I had my follow up with my doctor at Johns Hopkins.  He reviewed my Cat Scan and he stated that everything seems to be normal.  It was a little hard to tell due to the fact of the metal reflection from my implants in the surrounding area. He also asked if  there was any issues with my jaw and thankfully I responded no.

He asked about my leg, in which I informed him my foot was giving me issues and two of my toes curled in and my flexibility was shortened on that foot.  He asked if I felt that was related to the surgery they did back in 2007.  I told him yes I did due to the fact I developed a mallet toe soon after the surgery. I also had a nerve test done about three to four months after my original surgery that showed some form of muscle trauma. He said it was amazing how well things work.  They have to go thru and between the muscle to get the bone and they do take out  some of the muscle.  He has had people go back after surgery perfectly fine, playing soccer  and such but what he does not know is the results 10 to  20 years down the line, especially in young people active people. That is why he always ask patients about their leg who had the fibular free flap reconstruction.  I told him there is  a change from before the surgery and then after but on the big scale of things it is tolerable.

I did show him I still had this bump on the side,   (see prior post on Thursday, February 25, 2010).  He thought it might be soft tissue  or part of my bone, but he did not seem too worried about it, though this was different from what he told me back in 2010. He was stating the most important thing is that the ameloblastoma does not come back. 

Case in point, he had two cases in South Africa where the amelo came back due to insufficient surgeries. And unfortunately it spread to the upper mandible and up to the  jaw joint in front of the ear and into the month.  They had  to take the whole rest of the bone away .  And they do not try to do too many reconstruction as its not really possible there.  So people do OK with basically no jaw bone. They have to eat  soft food only.  I am thankful I live in a country where reconstruction is possible.

He did say my scar is a little red then he liked but that is my fault for not following up on my mederma or  vitamin E.  But to me the scar is a war wound and besides scars are sexy.

He stated that at this point the question is how long do we keep watching the area and  how long do we continue with the scans? There is no book or paper to tell that. But based on the time that has past it makes one hopeful  that my ameloblastoma will not come back.  Perhaps they could just do a panoramic x-ray instead of  a Cat Scans? That is the question at hand. They don't know why people develop ameloblastoma and so there is no   preventive measurement one can take.

So we left it with maybe an x-ray rather than a Cat Scan in about 2-3 years.