Can you really remove the fibula?




November 2, 2009: Today I met with the doctor who is going to perform my cancer surgery. He is an ENT (ear, nose and throat) doctor, also known as an otorhinolaryngologist.  He explained the procedure to me. I can honestly say that I am completely overwhelmed. They want to cut a section of my lower left jaw out and then replace it with another bone. The bone they want to use…is my fibula. Given my knowledge of anatomy I know that the fibula is a non-weight bearing bone in my lower leg that has several muscles which attach to it. This bone also makes up the ankle joint. 
Can they really remove this bone? I am assuming yes since they have performed this procedure before, but this truly scares the hell out of me. I asked him a couple of questions but mostly just tried to process everything he was saying. I still haven’t processed it. They are scheduling my surgery for November 10th.  Everything is happening so fast that I can’t even wrap my head around it.  Tomorrow I am having a scans of my legs done, so they can see which leg has the best blood supply/blood flow. They will remove the fibula from that leg.

Is this really happening to me? 
November 3, 2009: It amazes me that they still have no idea what my diagnosis is. They have ruled out neuroblastoma. My case has been sent back to the adult oncology department. Today the oncologist explained the difficulty of diagnosing me. “Let’s use fruit as an example. We can tell you that you have an apple, but we haven’t figured out what kind of apple it is.” This explanation makes sense, but seems so odd to compare a cancerous tumor to an apple.  Since they have no idea what kind of cancer this is, they don’t know which treatments will work best. I have to have chemotherapy treatments and radiation therapy treatments. They are planning to treat me with the most aggressive chemo drugs, and want to start the chemotherapy very soon. These will likely start within 2 weeks post-surgery...just in time for the holidays.  

Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 5, 2014 at 10:18 AM

    I has a fibular resection done on me for a giant cell tumor of bone in May 2014 now I can only walk but running I feel no strength

    ReplyDelete

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