My Dental, and otherwise, Trauma

It was just a regular Tuesday when it happened, not much different from any other day. My husband Mike and I were both at work, and did the occasional mid-day discussion about what to have for dinner, what plans were for after work, that type of thing. I had just started going to a gym near work that I was really enjoying - a real gym with some great trainers and exercises based on free weights and body weight. Pretty no frills, which means pretty intense. I was loving it! I was signed up for a class that night and I was feeling a bit tired that day, and even considered skipping it.  Instead, we planned to pick up our son and meet at Boston Pizza for their 50th anniversary celebration, after which I'd hit the gym. I sort of figured that the extra calories would help propel me through the class despite my tiredness.

We went for dinner, and my hubby and little guy went home for bath and bed - I went to the gym for my class. All was going pretty well, I was doing well in the class and felt happy that I had gone instead of blowing it off to lounge on the couch. We were doing some leg exercises - lunges, stepping up onto boxes, and it was time to go outside to the parking lot to do suicide sprints.  Essentially, you sprint a short distance between 2 points - a short distance the first time, run back to the start, a little further the next time, back, and a little further a third time and back to the start line. This time we were to sprint to the first line, lunge walk backward to the start, then sprint to the next line and lunge walk forward to the start line.  I made it through sprint #1, lunged backward to the start line, and turned around to sprint again. I took off pretty fast, feeling surprised at how ahead of everyone else I was. I was almost to the end of sprint #2 when my legs just turned to jelly. I remember taking 2-3 shaky steps, knowing I was going to fall but not being able to do anything about it.

I fell pretty much directly forward, propelling my head toward the ground. I extended both arms to break my fall and held my head back in an attempt to avoid it crashing into the ground. For my efforts I was rewarded with a broken right wrist, a fractured left arm and smashed my chin into the asphalt. My chin split wide open and I knew right away that something was very wrong inside my mouth. My teeth felt really damaged, and I was spitting out blood and bits of teeth everywhere.

Brian the trainer (who is also the gym owner) called 911 immediately and we waited for the ambulance to arrive. At this point I was holding my mouth and bleeding EVERYWHERE. In the middle of a parking lot. Not my finest moment. I managed to walk myself over to the curb and got the trainer to call my husband to tell him to meet us at the hospital and find a sitter for our 3 year old.  At this point, folks from the gym and the offices next to us came out, wanting to assess the damage to my face and offer me ice - but there was no way I was going to let them look inside and see all the broken teeth, teeth that had come out of their sockets and freak me out even more by the looks on their faces (I knew it was bad enough to probably be scary looking). So of course, everyone starts telling me that it's not that bad (they couldn't see!) and they can fix teeth. Who are "they"? I wanted to punch them all...directly in the teeth.

THE ER

Once I arrived at the ER, I was put right into an isolation room. I was so grateful - my injuries were pretty bad and something folks would be tempted to stare at, which I certainly didn't need. The trainer stayed with me until my husband got there, and I won't forget his kindness and sincerity while he hung out with me. Once my husband got there, Brian left and I allowed myself to freak out a little more.

The ER doc (Dr S, who was fantastic) went right to assessing my injuries, splinting my arm and suturing up my chin. I got 5 stitches under my chin, which I was assured was a "legit" amount - no pansy 2-3 stitches which I feel is mostly for show. I would later find out that Mike was pretty sure my chin had gone right through the skin, that's how deep of a cut it was. The Dr wouldn't even consider my requests to glue it up...which I asked for to avoid the anesthesia! Apparently the glue wouldn't have held up with how deep my laceration was. The good news is that the scar is under my chin, and won't be too noticeable at all.

Dr S then went on to explain that my teeth were very badly damaged, and of course, hospitals do nothing for that so he got me the name of a dentist and was prepared to send me on my merry way....this despite what was glaringly obvious: my dental injuries. To quickly name what even I knew was going on:
- My lower left canine (33) was completely avulsed, hanging on by just a thread
- My lower front teeth (41-43, at least) were sticking out into my lip, at an alarming angle to where they should be
- My lower bicuspids (35 and 45) were broken almost right off
- My upper front teeth (11,12,21,22) were tipped inward
and, most alarming
- My face was swelling incredibly, I couldn't move my jaw and my jaw was in incredible amounts of pain.

My husband kept mentioning this to Dr S, but he kept telling me that it was a matter of physics.  The force with which I hit the ground had been absorbed by my body - first my arms, then my chin and finally, my teeth. The amount of damage that had been done to those parts was massive (particularly my teeth) and it would be "terrible luck" if my jaw were broken too. Well, around midnight as he was preparing to release me, Mike reminded him again of how much pain my jaw was in, prompting him to send me for some head x-rays for a look.

Taking those x-rays was, in a word, torture. I had to take a frontal image, one left side and one right side image, and I literally had to lie down on my gurney in between because I was dangerously close to passing out, vomiting or both from the pain. Not a good sign.  Dr S discovered at least 3 breaks....and I was admitted for the night.  A cat scan showed much of the same....extensive damage to my jaw.

Here are some cell phone photos that my husband took of me while in the ER.  WARNING - if you aren't into blood and gore, don't look!!

Here is an image of the type of fracture I sustained - this is not my exact fracture pattern. Obviously there was some upper jaw damage, and this does not illustrate all the damage to my individual teeth either. But it really helps to show the major breaks: 

The following morning the consulting oral surgeon paid me a visit, and let me tell you - seeing someone who had the promise of being able to help me was like seeing a mirage in the desert.  He informed me that he was going to need to do some surgery, but that it would take time to get an available OR to deal with a non-life-threatening situation, and I was to go home and wait. This time, with some real good drugs.