Surgery Set for October 12

Sunday, September 20, 2026

Emily gave a powerful talk in Sacrament Meeting today. She begins at-home MTC on September 30th.

Tony doesn't want to miss taking Emily to the MTC in Provo, so the Mandibulectomy and Mandible Reconstruction has been set for October 12th.

I don't know how Superman keeps this pace with the constant pain he's in. We are now doing daily wound care on the outside of his jaw and he keeps it covered with gauze and a bandaid. He began a third round of antibiotics. There can't be active infection when he goes into surgery or there could be a reaction to the titanium plate that holds everything together.

Templates are being created from the scans taken on September 11th. Dr. Monroe explained it takes two weeks for the templates to be made. The surgery is very high-tech, completely mapped out before the operation begins, and the cuts will be so precise that they match exactly.

Tony won't be able to eat anything by mouth for three weeks, so he will have a feeding tube. Since Tony has scar tissue in his abdomen from the 2017 feeding tube, he asked if that site could be reopened instead of going in through the nose and Dr. Monroe agreed and said it was a reasonable request.

In addition to the bone graft, Tony will require skin grafts due to scarring and radiation damage. Dr. Monroe prepared us for skin color mismatch and explained that once healed, Tony can consider working with a medical tattoo artist to blend them together.

A dental team will fashion implants as part of the process, so Tony will have teeth again! Up until a couple of years ago, patients had to wait until fully healed to get dental implants, and it was complicated getting dental insurance to cover it. Now there is a dental team at the Huntsman that works with the surgical team. This is a highly specialized procedure, and only a select few elite centers in the U.S. offer "Jaw-in-a-Day" surgery.