AUSTIN -- Abby Rodgers has always looked a little different. She was born with a genetic condition that, among other things, left her with very little jaw bone.
"It made chewing hard," the 16-year-old said. "It was really hard to eat like chips and meat, which I love to eat meat."
Growing up in Dallas, she had close to 20 surgeries aimed at repairing her jaw. Doctors even tried building out her jaw with titanium, but none of the operations were effective.
"That titanium joint on one side had started to pop out, so it was not symmetrical at all," said Abby's mother Angie Lester. "And her jaw was so far back, her teeth stuck out. It was hard for her to eat, it was hard for her to even brush her teeth because she couldn't open her mouth."
"Every time she'd go into surgery we have hope that she's going to come out looking like this and it had never happened before," Lester added. "So when we moved here she had already said, 'No more surgeries.'"
The family relocated to Georgetown in 2013. Abby's former orthodontist recommended she see an orthodontist at Dell Children's Medical Center, but to do that, she first had to see a craniofacial plastic surgeon.
"Abby said, 'You can set up an appointment, but I'm not having any more surgeries and he can look at me, but he's not touching me,'" Lester recalled.
Abby and her family met Craniofacial and Pediatric Plastic Surgeon Raymond Harshbarger, M.D. and three other doctors.
"Abby presented a very unique challenge," he said.
"Normally the way we address a deficiency of the lower jaw in a teenager like Abby would be to go to the lower leg and harvest the fibula bone," Harshbarger said, "but...she's missing the lower leg on both sides."
The doctors had not seen a case like Abby's.
"Having a small lower jaw where you're missing bone and then not having the fibula bone to use to reconstruct the jaw is extremely rare," Harshbarger said.
So the team came up with a new idea emulated from hand surgery.
"When you need a large amount of bone, as we did here, you need to have something that has its own blood supply otherwise it won't live, it'll disintegrate over time," Harshbarger explained.
The doctors concluded an ideal option would be the inner part of Abby's femur bones or thigh, where they connect at the knee because that part of the bone has an artery and vein that can be reconnected in the jaw.
Abby agreed to have the surgery in 2014 so doctors implanted the jaw they crafted from her femurs, then performed another surgery to bring her chin forward. It was a success, but the recovery wasn't easy.
"It was hard because I had only been in the hospital for a couple of days at most and then for this one I was in the hospital for a month and I couldn't eat and I had a [tracheotomy] so it was hard to talk," Abby recalled.
But that wasn't the hardest part. "Mainly smelling good food and knowing I can't eat it, that was really hard."
Abby still has to have one additional surgery to loosen her lower lip so that it can roll forward in a more natural position. She says it was all worth it.
"I definitely look better than I did," she said. "I feel more confident than I did because I feel like I look more normal."
"She has a chin now, which she's thrilled about," added her mother. Abby chimed in, "I've never had one of those before."
And the surgery had another advantage.
"Before this surgery my jaw had locked basically and so I couldn't open it very wide. So I was kind of on a liquid diet," Abby said.
Now she can enjoy her two favorite foods, cheese enchiladas and barbecue. "I keep sausage on hand at all times," laughed Abby's mother.
The teen and her family always wanted to try the famous Franklin Barbecue, but has never been able to go out to the restaurant. To celebrate her surgery, Aaron Franklin sent "the works" to the hospital Thursday, including brisket, ribs, sausage, turkey and all the sides.
"I got goose bumps when I heard about it," said Franklin. "That is the coolest thing ever, so we're so excited to be a part of it and super excited to get that girl some barbecue. I hope she likes it!"
After just one bite, Abby declared it was "delicious." That first bite is just one of the many new things Abby will now be able to try thanks to the life-changing surgery.
