Tuesday, August 29, 2006

If you are an atheist or an agnostic

After a few loops in the parking deck, we found a spot.

We got to the oral surgery department and only waited for a few minutes before a nurse came to get us. She was happy to see Fritz, who is a smiley kid. And of course, she cooed over Pete (broken arm and all), because he's just so darn cute.

A younger doctor who had assisted with Fritz from the beginning (a resident?), came in and did the initial check-up. He asked some basic questions about Fritz's healing (bleeding, pain, etc) and then told me that the biopsy results were in. The cyst is a dentigerous cyst. This is good news.

Another doctor came in and examined Fritz. Everything looks good - no infection, healing nicely. The stent had fallen out on Friday, but we'd been using the syringe they gave us to clean the cyst anyway. The doctor remarked that they had thought the cyst was an odontogenic keratocyst (OKC), but were happy that it turned out to just be dentigerous. OKCs are hard to get rid of, but dentigerous cysts have a really good prognosis.

We have to go back tomorrow to discuss treatment options with his surgeon. Since it's not an OKC, the doctor may think surgical removal is better than waiting for the cyst to shrink. (I guess OKCs affect the bone too, but dentigerous cysts do not...so removing Fritz's cyst is not as big a deal as it might have been). The stand-in doctor didn't really want to discuss the pros and cons of the different options (Fritz is not his patient, I understand), so all this will have to wait until tomorrow.

For now, we can be happy that the news is good, and that Fritz is not looking at a lifetime of related problems!