Fractured Jaws – Dizzy’s Story – Part Four

Two more weeks of nursing care (four weeks total so far), and it looks like the infection is all under control.  I'm thinking it's time to try to repair that upper jaw, and try again to re-attach the inner cheek surfaces to the gums and cover up that naked mandible bone.  So, it's sleepy-time for Dizzy.

Here's where we get into that nine lives thing.  That red line in the roof of his mouth is all that's left of our horrendous open fracture line.  The maxilla has healed together.  No more "gull-wing".  No surgery, just tincture of time, the cat's remarkable healing ability, and the fact that we were giving him huge amounts of nursing care — esophagostomy tube feeding three times a day, plus his meds.

The granulation tissue was nearly covering the naked bone, too.  So, now we've just got to keep supporting him until he is ready to start eating on his own.  The bones are healed together, and his lip is stuck back on.  No reason he couldn't eat, but he's probably still too sore. 

He could eat that soft A/D food and swallow it on his own, even though he still has his feeding tube in his esophagus.  The soft food would just flow around it.  Of course, if his mouth is still too sore, then it's still too sore.  So, we keep feeding him with his tube, three times a day.  His stomach will only hold so much, so you can't put a day's worth of food and water in one feeding.

It looks like we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we're not out of the woods tunnel  yet.

                                                                                    To Be Continued…