Juan's Road to Recovery

This year has been particularly hard for our whanau. After losing our home to the floods in January we were fortunate enough to find a new place to call home. While we were excited to start this new chapter in our lives, it was quickly cut short after my Fiance Juan discovered a lump in his Jaw in February.

After multiple hospital visits and tests, he has been Diagnosed with Desmoplastic Fibroma which is a very rare and aggressive benign bone tumor which affects less than 0.13% of people.

The only solution for treatment is to have major life changing surgery, medically known as Segmental Mandibulectomy/Fibular free flap reconstruction. This ultimately means that Juan's lower Right mandible (Jaw and teeth) need to be completely removed and reconstructed with bone from his Leg, the Fibular. Juan will need to have a temporary tracheostomy inserted to help with his breathing and a nose feed put in place during his hospital stay.

The 10+ hour Surgery is scheduled for the 11th Of July. This will be a long and emotional journey for Juan and our family and we will need as much support as possible while he recovers and learns to adapt to a new lifestyle as well as having ongoing rehabilitation and physiotherapy.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

We are extremely grateful for any support and appreciate every contribution made. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your generosity ❤️

*UPDATE** Juan's Surgery has now been pushed back to the 22nd of August *