how to save a bone

Now that The Boss is out of town, I have more time to write.
Also, I am not in my own cubicle (AKA the glass house. I feel like a beta fish) for the next little bit--since the receptionist has gone all aloha, I am manning the front desk. And it is a sunken-type deal (no better way to describe this), so I can sit here and type away and clients can't see what I am writing.
They probably assume it is some highly important financial document. Little do they know...

It is curious that when I am writing I feel freed. I feel energetic and capable and happy and just don't care what people think. It is me at my best! Even though I don't usually write the highest quality things that I am proud of, writing just for the sake of writing is important. It is like stretching, it is practicing.
To me it feels like swinging--pushing against nothing to get nowhere but up, out in the fresh air, your hair getting exuberantly tangled in the breeze, pumping your legs against open air to get a good momentum going, and then just cruising...and there is always that moment, coming down from the peak that the sun glints in your eyes. Marvelous.

I am trying trying TRYING to work more on my book. Or, what I hope will someday resemble a book. Right now it is a petty manuscript, one of those works-in-progress that is always looking a little down in the mouth.
It is about my experience with childhood cancer. But it isn't just about me being a sick kid--it is about today too, because I am still struggling with the aftermath of the cancer, and my whole life has been effected by it, so why just say "and then, I got better. The End."  It is important to show where I went with my life (exploring the arts! Travel! Poetry! Romance! College! Marriage! The Work Force!), and that I have moved on, but will never forget where I came from.

Speaking of which.... well I don't even want to write about this but I can tell that bottling it up is giving me mad anxiety and I need to put it out there. And P.S. I am interspersing my images of the day throughout, just to perk this up a bit. I don't want it to be a downer!

I know I still haven't addressed it personally, but maybe writing a bit will unwind me.  I've pulled the whole Scarlett O'Hara trick of "if I think about that now I'll go crazy. I'll think about it tomorrow."

Well I've put this off for a lot of tomorrows and have felt my stress level rise in proportion to that. It is quite mathematical, really.

So I had the top posts removed in my mouth--the implant pieces I was allergic to. And I felt immediately better, although I haven't bounced all the way back to the starting point. And a few weeks ago I noticed, near where the posts were, yet another lump.
While my best little Brit Vicky was in town, we went to visit my eccentric oral surgeon so he could take a look. And the news was no bueno.

I have another infection and a pyloric granuloma (what the lump thing is). These are the dumb things I had 4 or 5 of before--that I had surgery to remove--and the doctor believed they were caused by the post allergy, as I didn't have them before the posts were put in.

But now, a recurrence after the supposed allergy source is out indicates that the posts triggered an allergic reaction with the original, structural implant pieces--the ones in my bone.

I had the bone graft just for this procedure, and I've gone through so much pain for this...it is inconceivable that it may have all been for nothing and I may have to have the entire implant base removed.
He put my on antibiotics and the nasty brown mouth rinse, but if it doesn't go away...surgery. During which he will cut me open and take a little peek inside to see what is going on with the bone. He is afraid that as a result of all of these infections, the bone may have gone mushy around the implant devices (especially if I am allergic to them).

He said that they may not have bothered me before, but putting the top implant post piece on could have triggered an allergy inside. I pray to God not.

It is incredibly painful and I don't fancy the blood and pus I am spitting out 6 times a day.
I am incredibly fearful that I am going to have to have it all removed... I had a bone marrow graft when I was in my tweens, after I went into remission, and it failed.
If it fails again I may just lose my mind. I need this bone!! I need it for support! And putting in the posts gives the bone something to hold on to, so it doesn't recede (this is why my first bone graft failed). I can live without teeth, but not with my shallow jaw bone!

And so this is what I have been hiding from. I do feel a bit better now that I've put it out there, but still feel helpless and fearful. I guess this is a moment of "do your best, God will take care of the rest."