Josh's 2nd Opinion

Today, we saw another doctor for a second opinion on Joshua's Nonossifying Fibroma. He concurred with the diagnosis and the treatment, though he did place it with options.

One option is to let it be and monitor it. It is possible for it to resolve on its own, but there is no telling unless we chose this option of waiting and monitoring.

Another option is to repair it only if it breaks. Painful and more complicated, but an option. UPDATE: included in this option would be fixing it if it becomes painful for him even before any break.

Another option is to repair it now. One difference with this doctor is that he would NOT use Joshua's own bone to graft the void in his tibia. He would use bone from the bone bank instead. He prefers that because it avoids the patient having a second surgery site for donor bone. He also mentioned it would be an outpatient procedure, which seems to make this a more palatable option.

We are waiting through the weekend to give Joshua time to consider the options. The doctor was very good about cautioning me (Colleen was good with it!) to really get Josh's buy-in on the decision. Important especially if we choose to repair now, as the recovery period goes better if Josh knows this was something he decided to do as well. After the appt, Josh's position was to go ahead and repair it now. But we want to give him a couple of days to ponder it. If we go ahead with the repair, we'll call Monday morning and get the ball rolling.

We'll let you know what the decision is once we've made it. We appreciate your prayers for wisdom, discernment, peace and patience.