After I fell, it was obviously really hard to know what the situation was. I knew I hit my chin on the ground, and that there was a pretty nasty gash. I also knew, from feeling around with my tongue and spitting out bits of teeth, that there was a lot of damage to my teeth. My husband texted photos of the inside of my mouth to my dentist Dr. T, and she indicated that it was a bad situation. And even when the oral surgeon, Dr. M, visited me in the hospital and told me that my jaw was broken I still sort of thought "Well, you set a bone and it heals. That might be really tough if it's your face, but it will heal." What I didn't know was how different a jaw break can be.
In those early days the pain was so bad that I was given a lot of really strong painkillers that I had to take constantly to manage. And even then the pain was incredible. So the first month was pretty foggy, and it was hard to follow a lot of what I was being told. Dr. M purposely kept information from me, for this reason and also because it was all so traumatic that he didn't want to bombard me with bad news. It was a lot wait and see. Not to mention the fact that only my dentist could tell me what was going to happen to my teeth, and she hasn't even been able to determine that yet. And it's been 3 months! If you can't open your mouth, though, it's impossible to tell. I have to say though, Dr. T has been the voice of reality for me. While Dr. M. withheld information, Dr. T. was as honest as she could be with what had happened. She kept telling me that it would be a very long and sometimes very painful road ahead. That sort of helped me come to terms with it all. She's remained a constant source of support to me that I can't even express my gratitude.
I kept saying to people that the only way I could tell how badly I'd been hurt was the number of floral arrangements that kept arriving, and the strength and quantity of painkillers I was prescribed. It was really just day-to-day and week-to-week in the beginning, and like I said the timeline of healing wasn't really laid out all at once. I received over a dozen beautiful arrangements and my house began to look like a funeral home! And the drugs....I'll write a whole other post on them.
A big source of information for me was the very place you're NOT supposed to look when you have symptoms - the internet. But I needed to know...more information was better, taken with the knowledge that I couldn't take what I read as absolute. I kind of understood that when I found very little information about my particular break. (And of course that's the reason I'm writing this blog). When it comes to "broken jaw blogs" (my preferred search term, as I was looking for accounts of what it was like, not really medical information), I found there are 2 camps of people who "break" their jaws. The first are people undergoing jaw surgery to correct bites, as part of a planned treatment. I don't discount the difficulty of doing this, but they were doing it to get better or perfect their smiles. In my case, I'm not going to to heal in a better position - my bite will probably never be right, and I'm going to be losing teeth and undergoing hours of dental work, not just the surgery once and then braces and then yay! my teeth line up like they always should and I'msohappywiththeresultsOMG! The other camp are folks like me - they've had their jaws broken through an incident, but I found that usually meant they'd broken one side of their face as a result of being hit with an object or by someone. Not a whole lot of folks have broken their jaws clear of the joints. Yay me! I've always been an overachiever. *insert sarcasm
One thing that I was strangely comforted by was the number of articles about hockey players having broken their jaws - yet even they usually sustain it as a result of a hit, either from another player or, more often, a puck to the face. (Horrific in it's own right). My sort of injury would more likely happen as a result of falling face-first onto the ice and hitting your chin. It's safe to say an NHLer would have to be knocked unconscious before falling like that....their skating skills are pretty solid. Now, as a true hockey-loving Canadian, I'm sickly comforted to be in their ranks - except I never played hockey and wouldn't put myself on the ice with anyone completing a slapshot with such force.
The part that really made me feel better was the all the accounts from said NHLers indicating that this was the worst injury they've ever had to recover from. Of course, it all depends on the severity of your injuries, but anyone having to have their jaws wired shut were highly affected by it. Even players who have undergone multiple surgeries say the jaw was the hardest recovery by far. So I feel better. #BadAssBitchAlert. I even found an article (about hockey) titled "Want sympathy? Break your jaw!!" Not to mention my hockey crush since was in the minors, Sid the Kid, had his jaw broken last year, and lost a whack of teeth. I'll just fake a hockey injury if anyone asks. But I digress. My point is that these accounts from tough mothers helped me to see just how serious this recovery would be.
One thing that surprised me once I was with it enough was the fear I would have of riding in cars. I remember hiding a panic attack I was having one day when my husband was driving on the highway. I just could not stop imagining getting into an accident, and what would happen to my damaged and fragile face if the airbag went off. It wasn't fun.
I'd say that at this point I've come to the acceptance that my face won't be the same as it was before. Even if I get braces and a bunch of pretty crowns, my jaw may not put the teeth in the right spot. If I can just get through losing teeth and being without them for a while, I think I might just survive this thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment