Dr. Stile Performs Surgery On Marcus Davis To Reduce Facial Cuts While Fighting
9/24/08 by Tracy Lee, combatlifestyle.com
The next day, Marcus had a presurgery appointment with Dr Frank Stile. I picked him up at 7:30 am and we fought traffic to make it there by 8. The offices were located on the west side of Las Vegas, pretty close to my house. The offices were pretty new and were extremely impressive; during the early morning appointment, we learned that the surgery center was attached to the offices. Most places that you have surgery done, you have to go somewhere other than where the Dr's offices are located. The decor was much more than you would expect from a doctors office; the lobby walls were lined with wood and had vaulted ceilings painted with clouds on them. The exam rooms had ornate frames in them with expensive pieces of wood furniture as well.
I had met Dr. Stile more than a number of times; usually at the fights because he's a pretty big fight fan. I had also known of him because he was the Dr. to do Nick Diaz's surgery. Nick Diaz had fought two fights without getting any cuts on his face. Not to say that the surgery is fool proof, but it did reduce to possibility of cuts. And thats exactly what Marcus was looking to acheive with the same surgery from Dr. Stiles.
Dr. Stiles walked in and shook Marcus' hand and then was surprised to see me. He said, "You going to come shoot the surgery tomorrow?" as he shook my hand too. Surprised that I didn't even have to ask and that he wanted me there, I nodded yes. He was very enthusiastic about it and went into detail what he was going to do in the operating room the next day.
Wednesday morning.. Surgery day for Marcus... I went to pick him up at his hotel at 5:30am; we had to be there at 6. He seemed pretty tired but wasn't really nervous like you might expect from someone who was about to go under the knife. We parked outside of the surgery center and went inside where we met with the nurse and she weighed Marcus and had him change into a hospital gown and hat. They handed me scrubs, a hat and booties and I went into one of the recovery rooms to change into my stylish outfit.
When I joined him in the prep room, the nurse was getting an IV started and then Dr. Stiles walked in. He started marking Marcus' eyes for where he was going to remove the scar tissue with a purple marker. He was very descriptive about what he was doing both for Marcus' benefit as well as mine. I think it was about 630 at this time.
After he was done marking up Marcus' face, the anesthesiologist came in and put a mixture into Marcus' IV. I can't tell you what it was but they were transporting him within minutes and he was trying to talk but became incoherent rather quickly. The moved him into the operating room right at 7am and transferred him on to the operating table.
He was given nitrous oxide when he arrived, and was under within moments. They put these eye shields into his eyes to keep things from falling into them. They looked extremely weird and creepy to me with these silver tabs poking out from his eyelids. The nurse prepped him with something to keep him from biting his tongue as well as a tube to help him receive oxygen. Then came the iodine that they painted over his entire face. It was almost like they were trying to make him into a clown. They covered his body and face with a sheet and wrapped a towel around his head. Soon the only thing that was showing was the area around his eyes.
It was at this point that Dr. Stiles walked in and the nurse helped him adjust his headgear. It was a complete assembly including glasses, magnifier and light. He looked down at his thumbs in front of him and she adjusted the light to fall directly on them. The anesthesiologist was monitoring his vitals throughout the surgery and a second doctor was assisting in the surgery. Including myself, there were 5 of us in the operating room.
Dr Stiles didn't hesitate as he made the first incision. He cut a crescent shaped piece of scar tissue from above Marcus' right eye. He followed the removal of the tissue with what looked like a tiny soldering iron; It singed the skin to stop it from bleeding. Once they had the skin pulled back from his skull and a small pocket created, Dr Stiles used the soldering iron as well as a chisel and a hammer to chip away at the sharp edge of the brow bone. It was a process that they did slowly and very carefully. Once he had the bone removed sufficiently (pulling out all the pieces that he had chipped away), he hydrated the incision with a clear liquid that possibly was even water. They measured the length of the incision at that point then turned to another table that had pieces of collagen soaking in a bowl. He cut a piece to fit and inserted it into the pocket he had created. He narrated everything he was doing for my benefit and explained that the piece would help to be a cushion against cuts.
After that, holding a pair of tweezers and forceps, he used a small, curved needle to sew an inner row of stitches using a blue thread. He finished it with an outer row of stitches using a thicker clear thread. It was an orchestrated song and dance that was very delicate and precise: I couldn't believe how easily he tied the knots using the equipment he did.
The left eye was an identical process that took kept us in the operating room up until 9:30am; two and a half hours! The time had gone by pretty quickly and soon they were wheeling him into the recovery area. It took minutes for him to start waking and if you've ever been around someone coming out of surgery, you know that the things they say can be rather funny. In this particular instance, the first thing Marcus said was, "Did the doctor take a crap in my mouth? Tracy, did you take a crap in my mouth?" He also mentioned wanting to wear the hat out later, wherever he went. Laughing, I sat there filming and taking pictures as the nurse saw to his comfort. I sent camera phone pictures throughout the whole process to Mark Dellagrotte and Mike and Kim Goldberg. We were out of there by 11am.
When we left the sugery center, I had been instructed to take him to get a smoothie so it was straight to the drive through at Starbucks for a frappuccino. Then I headed back towards his hotel, but we made a pitstop by the UFC offices to say hi to Donna as well as some of the rest of the UFC staff. We were back at the hotel by 1pm where he spent the rest of the afternoon taking it easy. But he wasn't one to take it easy too long and we ended up back at the 24 hour bar to rewatch the fights on HDnet. This time tons of stuff from the walkins was edited out and we got to see the meat and potatos of DREAM 5; the fights! I was thrilled because Urijah's guy, Joseph Benavidez, won that night.
The next day, Marcus had a post surgery meeting with Dr Stiles at 8:30am, so again I picked him up and took him over. Dr Stiles looked at the stitches, gave a few instructions, and told Marcus to come back in a week. He also told Marcus to take it easy. Instead, we went shopping for belt buckles again. We took off down to the strip like the site seers we are, and successfully fulfilled the mission. 2 belt clips and a money clip later (as well as a photo with a huge M&M) I took him back to the hotel to rest for the remainder of the afternoon.
See the full blog and photo set at: CombatLifestyle.com