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>> People don't realize it until you can't eat,
how big eating is to your social life.
Everything is geared around eating.
You go to church functions, there's food out.
You go to parties, there's food out.
And when you can't eat, it's a big part of your life
taken away.
Back in 1992, I deployed to Somalia.
I was with some Marines in a convoy,
and there was some type of explosion
and I was thrown and landed and hit my face.
There was nothing visibly wrong with me,
but I went to a couple dentists
and they said, "Well, you got some broken bones
up in your mouth."
And you know, they did a surgery to try to fix them,
and then everything just kinda, it just, you know,
escalated to the point where I had nothing.
>> It was bad.
I remember him always having to rest a lot.
You know, that was my dad, but he wasn't himself, you know?
>> I remember when he slept a lot
and he was in a lot of pain.
>> Hello.
You know, at that point, I was desperate for anything,
you know, any kind of help, really.
And then, you know, I met Dr. Desai,
and of course, he gave me this option.
>> How we doing?
>> Good, how you been?
>> Good, good.
>> Good.
>> I first met Scott on exam in the office.
He had loss of his entire mid-face,
so he had no bony structure or cheekbones to speak of.
Really, the upper part of the jaw was completely destroyed.
He had no teeth on the upper part of his mouth
and the whole mid-face, or the central portion of his face,
was essentially missing.
>> He told me, "You know, you're a good candidate
for what they call fibula free flap surgery,
and that's where they take your fibula bone
and make you a new jaw, and then once it's healed,
we'll put screws in and then we'll mount teeth in."
He said, "You're a runner, you're a healthy young man,
you're the perfect candidate."
He said, you know, "Why don't you think about it.
Go home, discuss it with your family and all that."
That wasn't necessary.
I was doing it.
>> So, this is all the bone that was missing.
We then did something called virtual surgical planning.
This is one of the newest techniques in rebuilding
tissues of the face, where if you look at the jaw here,
in this diagram it's missing, but this is his eye sockets
right here, and this is fibula bone,
bone from the leg, that is cut in a special angle
to rebuild the middle part of the face.
This was all using a computer program
to tell us exactly where to make the cuts
and at what angle to make the cuts.
This is a picture of your leg bone.
After we transplanted the bone up there,
we then brought the blood vessels from that bone
and tunneled it under the skin into the neck
and hooked up the artery and the vein
that supplies that fibula bone
to give the bone a blood supply.
This was one of the things that Scott didn't have
in previous surgeries, and this would significantly
increase the chance of the bone taking,
as opposed to a free graft
that does not have a blood supply.
>> As soon as I had the surgery,
I started walking around the hospital
because I said, "I need to get out of this bed
and get this leg moving and get this ankle
and everything accustomed to not having that fibula bone."
People told me, "You will never run again."
But in my mind, I said, "Yeah, I will.
Watch me." (laughs)
I'll be honest with you, it's a rough surgery.
But you know, if you set your mind to it
that you're gonna do it
and you're going to do the things necessary afterwards,
then you will be able to get through it.
>> To take care of someone like Scott,
who is a veteran and a hero,
is probably one of the most rewarding parts of my job.
>> Hey, Ron.
>> Hey, Scott.
>> Scott: I got my life back.
I mean, if I had to put it down in just a couple words,
I got my life back.
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