Randall relying on blender

By Chuck Woodling     Jan 20, 1988

George Washington, it is often said, was first in war, first in peace and last in line when the almighty handed out teeth. At least the Father of Our Country didn’t have an elongated jaw, though.

Back in Washington’s day, they could fit a man with wooden false teeth, but dental surgeons in Revolutionary War times never said: “Yeah, I can fix that jaw. All I have to do is break it in four places.”

Such an operation isn’t exactly an exciting prospect even today, but take it from Mark Randall, it’s not that bad, not that bad at all.

“It was painless all the way through,” said Randall, the Kansas basketball player who had the surgery done between semesters in Denver. “What they did was break my top jaw in four separate places and move it forward. It’s a great feeling to touch my (front) teeth.”

Prior to the operation, the only teeth in Randalls mouth that touched were his four rear molars.

As you can imagine, this palatal procedure produced a notable change in Randall’s appearance – so much so that practically everyone has mentioned it since he returned from his suburban Denver home for the spring semester.

“I was real surprised, especially in my profile,” Randall said about his first post-surgical look in a mirror. “Everybody says my nose has gotten smaller.”

That must be an optical illusion because Randall’s nose wasn’t touched during the operation, although his sinuses were. Truth is, Randall went under the knife for purposes other than cosmetic.

“It was a five-hour operation,” he explained, “and the first hour and a half they scraped out infected tissue from four of my sinus cavities. Now, with some treatment, I should be able to keep the sinuses clean.”

Randall’s breathing problems in pre-season – he couldn’t go for very long without running out of gas – precipitated coach Larry Brown’s somewaht surprising decision during the Jayhawks’ season-opening junket to Hawaii to red-shirt the former high scholl All-American.

As a freshman last year, Randall exhibited promise. He played in 31 games, starting four, and scored in double figures six times. On the flip side, he had trouble playing man-to-man defense – most freshmen do – and he had the stamina woes.

Now Randall looks better, says he feels better and…well, he’ll have to wait to find out if he’s going to perform better. Although his two jaws are not wired shut, he does have a metal splint screwed into his upper jaw, and he must be careful.

“The doctor said he can lift weights…light ones,” noted KU basketball trainer Mark Cairns, “but he can’t do anything strenuous for a while. The doctor hasn’t even allowed him to blow his nose yet.”

The temptation, you can well imagine, to blow his nose has been overpowering, but so, too, has been Randall’s yearning for real food because, while he can move his lower jaw to talk reasonably well, he’s not allowed to chew.

“The first three days I was on a liquid diet,” he reported, “and it’d take me about an hour to eat a meal. Now I just put it all in the blender. Like when I got home from the hospital, I had a craving for tacos and my mom ground it all down.”

Down went Randall’s weight, too. He lost about 20 pounds, but he’s put about half of that back by gumming those Gerber-ish meals.

“I’m looking forward to starting up (basketball) again,” he confirmed. “It was tough to have to watch the team play on TV.”

However, it’ll be at least another six or seveen weeks before that protective splint in his palate comes out. In fact, it’s scheduled to come out on March 2.

Coincidentally, that’s when the Jayhawks will play Colorado in Boulder.

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