Taylor Comes Home Today

9:00 am

Taylor comes home today after being gone for 2 weeks - the longest since the 5 months he was gone from home after the wreck.

The pain has slowly gotten better and he's expecting to be off the pain killers in the next day or so. The swelling has gone down a lot, but he's still "puffy" and will be for months.

The swelling of his inside cheek has prevented him from chewing. He had to put gauze between his teeth and cheek to keep him from biting it, and it's gotten very sore. He's been on a mostly liquid diet since the surgery, so he's looking forward to eating real food.

Last week he went to the Doctor to get the stitches out and for a follow up. The Doctor called the surgery "text book" and said they decided to leave the Gortex band that was installed in his cheek by Shands, and tie the transplanted muscle to the Gortex. He said they thought it would work better to do that rather than remove the band.

He had Taylor flex the muscle, and his mother said it did pull the paralyzed side back a little. It didn't create a smile, but the Doctor said it will in time. Taylor will have to practice triggering the muscle by putting his back teeth together and clenching his jaw. As the swelling goes down and the muscle gets stronger, it will pull the corner of his mouth back more.

The Doctor told us initially that the muscle will pull the corner back about 3/8". At first that didn't sound like much. But, when you look at his mouth in the normal resting position and measure back 3/8", you realize that it doesn't take much to create a smile.

Taylor is really ready to come home. It's been a tough 2 weeks for him and his mother. They stayed for a week with Suzie's cousin, the Robert Claiborne family in Baltimore, then after he felt better they stayed with Suzie's friend Amy Goyer in Alexandria, VA, just outside of Washington, DC. During the last week, Taylor wanted to go to a couple of places in Washington, but never felt like going.

He'll probably hang around the house for another week or so, then he'll be relaxing for the summer. He decided to not take any classes this summer, since he had the surgery scheduled and next month is his mother's annual family reunion in Tennessee.