Jim Kelly's wife captures unbelievable moment after successful reconstruction surgery
Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly underwent a grueling surgery Wednesday night in New York to remove oral cancer and reconstruct his upper jaw.
Doctors declared the half-day-long procedure a success.
“We successfully removed Mr. Kelly’s cancer from his upper jaw and lymph nodes from his neck,” Dr. Mark Urken, head and neck surgeon at Mount Sinai West, said in a statement via The Buffalo News. “We then reconstructed his upper jaw. Mr. Kelly is resting comfortably post-operatively.”
The surgery involved taking part of the fibula from one of Kelly’s legs, along with attached soft tissue and blood vessels, and inserting it into his upper jaw.
When the surgery was over Wednesday night, his wife, Jill, expressed her gratitude on Instagram.
“Surgery is complete,” she wrote. “Thank GOD and the amazing team of doctors and nurses that took care of Jim … and will continue to take care of him as he heads into a very significant time of recovery.”
She shared a photo of the computer in her husband’s hospital room, noting that it’s labeled No. 12 — which was Jim Kelly’s jersey number during his Hall of Fame career with the Buffalo Bills and in college with the Miami Hurricanes.
“Can you see it? During pre-op the computer in our section wasn’t working so they had to get a new one,” she wrote. “Then Jim says to me, ‘Did you see the computer? You should take a picture.’ And so I did!
“As silly as it sounds, God gave us the #12 computer. And almost 12 hours of surgery later….#12 is now on the road to recovery.”
Almighty!!!!
— Cornelius Bennett (@realcbennett97) March 29, 2018
In a statement through the hospital, she repeated a request she and the family have made often through Jim Kelly’s battle with cancer.
“The Kelly family requests that you continue to pray for Jim’s recovery as it will be extensive,” Jill Kelly said.
Jim Kelly is expected to be in the hospital with a feeding tube and trach tube for about two weeks.
Doctors said the leg from which part of his fibula was removed should function normally.
“We don’t interrupt the knee or the ankle joint where the fibula is part of that structure,” Urken said via The Buffalo News. “We take that central portion of it in order to redesign it and, essentially, repurpose it into functioning as a new jaw for him. But it will not affect Jim’s gait or his ability to go back to playing sports, cycling, doing just about anything you want to do.”
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