No surgery

As a general notification-and for those of you who've I've talked to about this-I am NOT going to be having jaw surgery. Not now, and probably not ever. If you look at the picture to your right, you will notice that there is a large yellow nerve coming out from what seems to be the ear. The incision for the surgery to correct my jaw problem (problem=no cartilage between my left jaw bones) would be made right by the ear and thus right by the nerve. And if you go down to the second picture...

...you can see why this is one of the riskiest surgeries to have. All of those nerves control your face in one way or another. The yellow and orange ones control motion and the green and blue ones have to do with senses. And I am sure that there are other smaller ones that are not pictured. I visited with an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctor yesterday and he told me that the only people really qualified to do this surgery are those doctors that specialize in them. He told me not to trust this surgery to anyone else-because of the risk. Any nick or mess up could leave me paralyzed on the left side of my face.

So I am saying, "no thank you" to that and we will just figure something out. The pain is bad, but only sometimes, and it does seem to be relieved using anti-inflammatory pain killers like Aleve, Motrin and Advil. He also told me I can try hot and cold compresses, jaw stretches (which he did on me while I was there and that is something else I will say "no thank you" to), and if it gets really bad, they can inject the area with a pain killer to numb it-but it would only be temporary and the injection itself would hurt.

What does this mean for my head and my meds? Well, we are still discussing our options, but since I can't get rid of the jaw pain like my brain doctor wanted before we decreased the meds, we might just do the easing off of meds ourselves and see how it goes. Don't worry, I'm not stupid and if I go off of them and see an adverse difference, I will go right back on. My health is number one and I know that. I had a blessing a couple of nights ago and I know that this trial will soon be over ("soon" being the Lord's term, so we'll see how long it really is since His timing is different from ours). So my new mantra is: "Hold on they way...Fear not...,for God shall be with you forever and ever" (D&C 122:9).