Jawbreaker

Surfer Boy has this list of things he says to me before I leave for my soccer game every Tuesday night. "Good luck baby. Have a good game. Don't hurt yourself. No bruises." Last night, he didn't go through the routine, so I'm totally blaming him for what happened.

Stupid ball deflected, or was kicked, by my goalie, right into the bottom of my chin on the left side. It wasn't on purpose of course, she was just trying to block a really hard shot on goal - my face just happened to be only five feet away from her foot, so I had .00000004 seconds to react. Blam.

The pain in my jaw made my eyes water, but the real fun started when I tried to close my jaw and couldn't bite down right at ALL. The jaw was totally displaced to the right and forward and no amount of trying was making my molars touch. And that was when panic set in.

The thoughts as I remember them in order:
  • Wow that hurts
  • I can't freaking close my jaw- AHHHHH!
  • How will I eat?
  • I'm going to London next week - AHHHHH!
  • Maybe if I punched myself on the other side, I could get it back in place.
  • I'm totally going to have my jaw wired shut before I go to London.
  • I think I might cry.
  • It's fucking dislocated - I hate soup in the summer!
  • Wow that hurts
  • FUUUUUUCK

I walked off the field holding my jaw and trying to open and close my mouth. My mom was on the side lines and was trying to be all calm, but you could tell she was freaked out too when I told her and showed her how out of whack my teeth/jaw was. I think it's fair to say that at this point, I wanted to crawl into a corner and disappear. It hurt like a mother and the worst-case scenarios wouldn't stop parading around in my head.

I didn't stick around to talk and drink beers with the girls - I couldn't handle the thought of sitting there feeling like that around all those people. I popped four advil and put a heating pad on it and went to bed. Somehow, overnight it mostly realigned itself as the molars were meeting in the morning. It's still really painful if I accidentally jar it one way or the other and I had to be very deliberate with my lunchtime masticating, but I'm so freaking happy to say that I can work my jaw normally again. Mostly normally. Yawning still hurts.

Comments

Life said…
Oooh if it still hurts in a week, get thee to a dentist. You can develop TMJ issues if it is the teeniest bit misaligned. Dammit Dave, next week there better be a cursory goodbye warning.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Unknown said…
glad to hear it's better! how is it today? i love the i hate soup in the summer comment. i don't think i do, but i made the mistake of bringing soup for lunch to the non-airconditioned back kitchen of the herpetarium about a month ago, and spent the whole time thinking damn it's hot in here, why the hell did i bring soup?
also, i went to the doctor after diego slammed me in the face at full speed w/ his rock hard skull (seriously, that dog's skull may be one of the hardest things ever to hit me repeatedly all over my head and body). he said that it looked like it fixed itself, but that doesn't keep me from looking at me in profile in kim's pictures from the engagement party and convincing myself that i now have a big hump on the bridge of my nose.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
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