Arch Bar removal/insurance

Today was a great day for Trent! He had a CT scan done and his arch bars removed by the oral surgeon! The CT showed he's healing well, however, the fratures are still very visible. Dr. Wong told us it will take at least 6 months before they fully heal. However, even in spite of that, he'll soon be free to play basketball! He said it (his face) may hurt, but that he'll be stable enough for it. Amazes us! And now we can see why it hurt the other day when he tried to run a few steps! The plate on the roof of his mouth has also healed well. He could not even feel it when he examined him.

Then, we got home and opened the mail. Surprise! Bills have started coming in from Billings. And guess what they said? "Submitted to Blue Shield. Denied. Patient not enrolled in the Billings provider managed care plan on the date of service." Over and over. Grump! So tomorrow I will call the insurance and try to get them to pay!

Next week on Monday Trent sees the spine guy and gets his neck brace off!

Back to School Update

Hello Everyone! Trent Peterson here and blogging for the first time!

Progress: Well it has been a little over a month since the accident and surgery and recovery has gone very well! The neck brace is more of a pain now than anything and I can't wait to get it off. I actually haven't had any pain in my neck at all-they put the brace on asap when I was in the hospital and I hope it has been healing since. My face is still numb in a few areas but not too bad. Now that everything is stable and well into healing I am working on making all the faces I can to work on "rebuilding" the nerves to get rid of the numbness. Fortunately if there was this numbness with an adult, even as young as late 20s, the numbness might be permanent, but thanks to youth (again and again and again) it should completely heal in time. For the most part, swelling has gone down. In the morning my right cheek is still swollen, and  there is just a little bit of puffiness around the eyes and bridge of my nose, but that will just take time as well. The only problem is putting in contacts! That’s a new challenge for sure! Even the bleeding in my eye (I think it scared a few people when I looked at them from that side!) slowly went away and now there is no coloring at all.

So  two weeks ago we went to an Oral Surgeon for a follow-up/consultation appointment. Nothing new or out of the ordinary there but he was really nice and informative. It looks like I will be getting the arch-bars (braces, wires, whatever you want to call them) off by mid-September so hopefully not much time left with them in! They are not all that bad, nothing different from braces really, except they are wired INTO my gums, not glued to my teeth but I am doing just fine with them in. Around the time of removal I will also have follow up appointments for my spine at an orthopedic doctor. I hope those go well and they find that everything is healed. If everything goes well at the orthopedic appointment then I will be cleared and I can take off the brace!! That would be nice for sure! Just this week I had an ENT (ear, nose, and throat) appointment and it was just a checkup to see how my cheeks/nose are healing, and nothing to report except progress. They just want to make sure everything is healing as it should so again I'm wishing it goes well!

Now here the unbelievable part-this isn’t for sure at all but I am hoping to be fully cleared after 8 weeks which would be about the end of September. This would be a complete clearance that we are hoping for, which means full-contact and EVERYTHING…ya know what that means? I am going to get a full season of basketball in! Now that is exciting, at least for me! Its going to be hard getting back into shape, especially after missing so many workouts and losing so much weight, but it will be worth it when the season comes around.

So school has started! Well it really started with the training for freshmen orientation-getting up early, going around the school, and I admit it was really tiring! But the couple of days of training, then the actual orientation, kind of helped build up some energy! I just finished my second week of school as a junior and everything is going well.

Thanks again to everyone!