Classic story: Boy see ball..

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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And another boy sees the ball, but unfortunately the two boys don’t see each other. WHAM!

June 29th: Pop up behind shortstop. I run back full tilt trying to catch it. The outfielder runs full tilt in to catch it. We collide. He goes down (with the ball) with the wind knocked out of him. I stay up, but my jaw hurts like hell and I’m spitting some nice dark blood.

A few days go by and I can’t chew at all. For the next several days I eat nothing but broth. I can’t chew anything. Finally on July 3rd I see my doctor just to get some pain medication so I can eat something. He orders x-rays and it turns out I broke my jaw. I go see an oral surgeon who tells me I actually broke it in two places and I need to have a titanium plate put in near my chin and the jaw wired shut for the next two to six weeks. And oh yeah. The surgery will be on July 4th (the next morning) at 7:30 am. I had to be at the hospital the next morning at 6:00 am.

Feel sorry for my wife. We have a 12 day old daughter and two other kids and now I’m kind of useless in helping out. Fortunately, the other two were staying with Grandma the night of the 3rd so we didn’t have to deal with them early the next morning. On the 4th, my wife and I are up at 4:30 to get ready to leave by 5:15 to make it to the hospital on time. I head into surgery at 7:30, and my wife waits the two hours to see how things go. Fortunately, things went okay and she was able to head off to enjoy the festivities while I recuperated the rest of the day. She picked me up and we headed home around 4:00 that afternoon.

Since then, things have been going decently. I’m subsisting on Ensure, as nothing else tastes remotely good. Ever have eggs that have been liquefied? Yech. Same thing with the dozen other foods I’ve tried to eat. Mostly it just hurts to eat anything.

My bottom lip is still totally numb. I’m not sure if this is good or bad, though. The good part is that I’m probably not in as much pain because it is numb, but I’m worried it will be permanent.

I head back to the Oral Surgeon tomorrow to get checked out. My teeth hurt and I’m swollen. Ugh. This is going to be a long 6 weeks.

Anyone else ever have to have their jaw wired shut? Any good recipe ideas?

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Vanilla ice cream, package of Instant Breakfast (chocolate malt, mmm…), milk – blend. Many variations on this simple theme are possible. Ice cream, bananas, protein powder, milk – blend.

I would suggest a juicer for veggies.

Good luck. Sports are great for your fitness if they don’t kill you.

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Slimfast is pretty good, too, if you stick to the chocolate varieties.

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Sorry 'bout the pain and inconvevience, man… I’ve had my share of broken bones, weird injuries, and hospitalizations, so I kind of know what you’re going through.

But, when you’re all healed up, this thought should be pretty cool to you: You’re part way to becoming a cyborg!

Titanium chin! How cool is that?
But, really, hope you got plenty of pain pills (non addictive). You will need them. The dull, deep pain will keep you up nights without it.

On the bright side, though, todays surgeries seem to healing faster than even just a few years ago. My experience, anyways. YMMV.

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Titanium Chin <—BAND NAME!!!

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I didn’t have my jaw wired shut, but I had my wisdom teeth taken out in a rather barbaric fashion. Both cheeks swelled up like you wouldn’t believe. Had to live with the nickname of Chipmunk for a long time.

Just remember, pain pills are your friend. But too much of that friend isn’t a good thing.

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I had major jaw surgery back in '88 or so - lower jaw reduced in size (about1/2 an inch on both sides taken out), upper jaw removed, pulled forward about1/4 inch and reattached.

But I was only wired for about two days.

Why? well, I developed a bleeding ulcer (stress from worrying about the surgery), and threw up 6 units of blood - ended up in the ICU for a few days. Obviously, they cut the wires when this happened, and we just went with rubber bands from there out. Healed fine (of course, I still have the screws in my jaws…)

ANYWAY - I used to like taking Hormel scalloped potatoes with ham, and pureeing that - tasted like potato soup.