Open wide

I am not doing very well blogging my adventures, which of course implies I've had many.
Take last week for example. Last week, I spent a happy 6 hours in A & E. Yes for me.

So let me expand upon that.

I had gone home to my parents' to pick up a few things I needed. Straight in, grab the stuff, straight out. What actually happened though was a lot more complicated, however. I tripped over the front step. Yes, the same front step I've been stepping over - without incident - since 1991.

Not so bad you're thinking. Well try not to wince when I tell you that rather than just stumbling, or even falling down, I fell into Dad's car - face first. Actually, I landed my jaw on the headlight before landing on the driveway.

I howled, like actually screamed, for a short while on the driveway before I realised I didn't want the neighbours to find me like this. After feeling for my teeth (and checking there were none on the driveway) I hobbled up and made my way to the freezer for an ice pack for my jaw (further demonstrating my good, non-panicky emergency skills) I stopped by the mirror and saw the blood in my mouth, which, thankfully, was just coming from a small cut inside my lip. Then I called my parents to tell them I thought I'd need an x-ray. I said it hurt a lot, Dad asked if I'd had a painkiller. Ha! I was so beyond painkiller pain.

So there I was in A & E with no real outward sign of my injury. No bruise materialised and there wasn't much swelling to notice. So it really did look like I was just there for my two scraped knees. So I held my jaw for extra effect. Obviously.

I really really hoped my jaw wasn't broken because they wire it shut. I also hoped that I wouldn't throw up because of the painkillers, because having to open my mouth that wide would be horrendous. Oh yeah, and I don't like being sick.

The x-ray was quite cool. Well I say that, but I had to stand perfectly still while biting a yellow grip thing (which I'm not entirely sure was sterilised beforehand) while the radiologist broke the machine twice. When she did get it working is swooped around my head doing its x-ray vision thing. The swooping was cool, the rest of it I could take or leave.

When I broke my hand in Singapore and had to go to x-ray by the time I had made it back downstairs to the doctor he had my x-ray on his computer screen. Not so much here. It took a long time for them to tell me they didn't think my jaw was broken. Any thoughts I had of smiling at that point ended, well yes with the pain, but also with the news I'd have to see a specialist the next morning at 8.30am. It was 3.00am.

So later that morning the max fax (maxillofacial - Max Factor make-up has a cleverer name than I ever gave it credit for) specialist told me my jaw definitely wasn't broken. Thoughts of smiling were still far from my head though. She told me I'd have to work over the coming days to stretch my jaw back otherwise I could have long term damage, but for a few days I'd be on a liquid diet and soft food for about three weeks. Definitely no crusty bread or apples for me.

It's been quite sore, right up to my ear. Talking tires me out but I haven't had to talk through my teeth though. Stretching has been hard work too. By Friday evening I could fit one finger in my mouth and twist it 90 degrees. Skips (the crisp) would just about fit into that gap, although some would have to be broken. On Saturday I had run out of soup so tried beans. That's when I got my (temporary) fear of eating implements from - it didn't go too well. Don't worry, I haven't wasted away. Wotsits, Skips and chocolate Buttons alongside soup and smoothies. Last night I came home to my parents' and had my first proper meal since Wednesday night's Spag Bol. (I mean, if that was going to be my last meal, what a way to go. Only sorry I didn't have the garlic bread now.)

I can open my mouth quite far now, maybe not Dentist-wide (that's the industry term) and chewing is still quite difficult but I really am so lucky it wasn't worse, because it really could have been.

I mean, what would I have done if the chocolate Buttons didn't fit?

[Beth Lav (shoutout!) hoped for me to write a comical blog about all this in six months' time. I'm not sure that I'll ever find this as funny having happened to me, as opposed to if I'd seen it happen - I laugh when I see people trip, I can't help it. But when you see a headlight (albeit from a stationary car) that close to, it's hard to find funny. Five and half years on from my broken hand, I'm still not laughing about that (although there were parts of that made me laugh - like squeezing shampoo straight onto my head and the soapy bubble mess I made because I had no clue how much I had put on). This will probably be the same - thinking about it will be no fun, till I remember all the day-to-day things that made me laugh.]