Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Current status - ball of stress/anxiety

As the title states, I'm currently feeling very stressed.  At this point I've had my displaced fracture surgically repaired with a couple of plates, was wired for 3 weeks and had the wires cut and bands put on the arch bars.  I can remove them only when "eating".  Up until Friday I had been handling the situation quite well, I'd broken down in tears a couple of times since the accident for a few minutes, but otherwise was in good spirits, content to wait this out with the knowledge that much worse things can happen to you than breaking your jaw, and that I would get better and life would return to normal.

Then I got the wires cut and bands put on.  For most people with jaw fractures, this is a great day 'cause your mouth is more comfortable and you can begin to eat again.  I recall after the wires were removed, my doctor asked me to open my mouth as far as I could.  Her response was "that's as far as you can open?" which concerned me a bit, but unless you are watching yourself in the mirror, you can't really tell how much your mouth is open. I left the appointment in good spirits and later went to whataburger to pick up lunch for my 4 year old son and some fries for me.  Fries are fairly soft and small, I should be able to handle this, right?

Wrong...my mouth opening isn't even large enough to fit a fry in there, much less try to chew it.  That's when I lost it, retreating to my room to cry.  Luckily my son is easily distracted by video games so hopefully I'm not freaking him out too much.  I do try to put a happy face on around him.  At some point my mom returns my call and I proceed to talk/cry to her on the phone.  Then I do what I always do when there is something physically wrong with me or a family member/friend: I hit the internet.

Before my son was born I was a dietitian, have a master's degree in public health and worked in medical research, so I pride myself on being able to comprehend medical issues, while understanding that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.  Anyway, I read a couple of journal articles, and find some fantastic blogs (which I will link to at some point), and find many people complaining of decreased mouth opening, though all but a few fail to specify what their initial opening is.  One person explained that they could only open 1.5 cm initially, which is three times what I can do.  That's right, I can open about half a centimeter.  I can fit my pinky in my mouth, but some of that space is there 'cause I have an overbite/teeth that buck out a bit. Of further concern to me is that while I have bilateral subcondylar fractures, I only feel resistance to opening on the left side, the same side where I have had issues with teeth grinding/clenching that while wired caused me sufficient pain to wake me up several times a night and required me to be on a muscle relaxer.

So, 4 days have no passed and I have had zero improvement in mouth opening, which I'm guessing means one of the following: 1. The bone healed incorrectly and I'll need surgery/extensive physical therapy. 2. Something else that I haven't considered 'cause I'm not a doctor. 3. I'm a big freaking baby and just need to be patient.

Anyways, called my doctor's office this morning and while she is out today, I have an appointment tomorrow morning to hopefully get another x-ray and find out what is going on.

Introduction

While on a vacation in South Dakota I fainted, fell and broke my jaw in three places (bilateral subcondylar fractures and a displaced parasymphasis fracture), busted my chin open and chipped/moved a few teeth around.  It is now 3 1/2 weeks after the accident and I have decided to start a blog mainly as a form of self therapy and to potentially help anyone who may stumble across this blog that has had a similar experience.  I don't really plan on telling anyone I know about it, because honestly it feels a bit self-indulgent and friends/family members hear me complain enough about it via facebook, in person and on the phone.  Since this is more of a diary than anything else, I'm not going to worry about making it organized, so I apologize to anyone reading if it come off non-sequential or otherwise disorganized.