If someone asks me how my summer went, it’s going to be a complicated answer. The short answer is it was rough. If you want the full answer, keep reading. On June 4th I opted to do some tennis footwork training on the newly resurfaced tennis court where we live instead of the clay court I usually practice on. At 47 years of age, I want to be faster on the tennis court so these are things I have to do to achieve that. After a proper warm up and doing a few sprints, I went to do another sprint. I jumped up. I landed in a split step. The goal was to sprint as fast as I could to the net. In having reflected on this moment in time for what feels like over a hundred times, I’m not sure exactly what happened after that. This wasn’t a new activity for me. I have probably done thousands of sprints like this in my 40+ years of playing sports. This day was different. Instead of sprinting forward, I pitched forward, sprawling and landed on the tennis court with all of my momentum and body weight behind me into my chin. I didn’t black out. I can recall hearing the highest of high pitch ringing in my ears. I immediately checked my jaw. As someone who had upper and lower jaw surgery at the age of 18 and having already suffered another freak accident on a tennis court where I also landed on my chin, I have been taught to be supremely cautious of further damaging this part of my body. I immediately realized I could not close my jaw to make my teeth touch. It felt like my lower jaw had been shoved backwards which you can see in the photos. I ran my tongue over my teeth and realized at least one was chipped, but my tongue was intact. My eyes traveled downward to the court where I realized blood was rapidly accumulating drop by drop and lifted a hand to touch my chin where I felt a giant split.
I slowly stood and did a quick check of knees, hands and elbows noting that I had not one other single scrape on my body other than the gaping wound seeping blood onto the court. I grabbed my shirt to cover my wound and began walking. I cannot recall if I took the stairs as I usually do to our third-floor condo or used the elevator. I was in shock and could feel the adrenalin coursing through me which was taking the form of feeling jittery and tingly. I unlocked the door and bypassed my usual greeting to our two kittens and beelined it for the bathroom where I grabbed gauze, peroxide and covered my wound. I picked up the phone, checked the joint calendar I share with my husband Wojtek to see that he should be done with work. I called him. He picked up and the garbled words I spit out were, “I screwed up my jaw.” I can’t remember the rest of the conversation other than I understood he would be home shortly.
Due to him being a wonderful tennis coach and having lots of clients that love him, he just happened to have one client whose husband was an oral surgeon who called me within minutes it felt like. After a brief conversation, it was decided the surgeon would meet us at his office. Wojtek got home, drove me to his office and the first x-ray was taken. It wasn’t until later the doctor shared his initial reaction upon seeing my x-ray was, “mother f****r”. I had managed to fracture my jaw in three different places.
The real problem was the location of these fractures. One was in what I’ve learned to be a fairly normal location at the front part of the jaw where the chin is. The other two locations are known as subcondylar fractures and they were both so high up on my mandible that this particular oral surgeon said he wouldn’t be able to do the surgery. He recommended I go to the local ER where they would have an oral surgeon on-call. Off to the ER we go where randomly the nurse who was administering my medications happened to be the daughter of a woman who I had shared a homeroom with for four years of high school and had been known to bully me on occasion, but that’s a story for a different time. The oral surgeon on-call opted not to see me that night and instead asked me to come to his office the next day where he informed me that he too would be unable to perform this type of surgery. He recommended we go to the oral surgeons at the University of Florida Shands hospital because they had the best facial trauma oral surgeons in the region.
After suffering through 2.5 days of having a fractured jaw and not hearing back from the offices in Gainesville, it was recommended we drive to the ER at Shands hospital and attempt to see one of their oral surgeons through that method so that is what we did. On the 4.5 hour drive we did receive a phone call from the front desk staff of that oral surgeon’s office. We relayed to them the seriousness of my issue, but after speaking with three different front desk staff, we were told the next appointment available was on July 16th…..please keep in mind at this point it is June 7th. Since living with a fractured jaw for over a month was unfathomable, we opted to continue our drive to the hospital.
While waiting at the ER I received a phone call. It was a doctor from the oral surgeon’s office we were told didn’t have an appointment until July 16th. He asked if we could come in Monday. We told him we were literally across the street and he said come over ASAP.
I was informed they could do the surgery and that I was lucky I was there because there were only 30-40 surgeons in the US who could have done it. I was also informed there was no guarantee the surgery would fix things and there was a possibility of a surgery again further down the road. They warned me of the wide range of side effects of the surgery such as nerve damage to my facial nerve being unavoidable and what that would entail. We left scheduled for surgery on the 10th almost a week after my accident. They inserted three metal plates (I have been assured I will not set off metal detectors) and six screws to anchor the wires that would keep my jaw closed as it healed. These are marked in yellow on the x-ray. The other screws are left over from my first jaw surgery. If you rub your tongue along the soft, fleshy area below your front teeth on your lower jaw, this is where I could feel one of the screws poking through. After surgery I was introduced to the way I would have to feed myself for the next six weeks. It involved a very large syringe with a very narrow tube that I would have to push to the back corner of my mouth so that liquid could pass through that small area in the back of your mouth between your gums and back molars. On the plus side, the swelling was not remotely as bad as it had been with my first surgery. I was unable to close my left eye due to the nerve damage the doctors had said would happen and could not move any muscle on the left side of my face.
The day after surgery we went back to the surgeon’s office where we were told that my surgery went well. Now it would just take time. The next weeks in hindsight were a haze. I do remember having to sleep upright with my head facing forward because it was too painful to lay on my left or right cheek. My left eye being so painfully dry despite having an arsenal of a wide variety of eye gels and drops to use. I was unable to hear out of my left ear due to the swelling around the incision.
The worst was the nerve pain on the left side of my face where they had put the metal plate. I already have a history of something called occipital neuralgia. If you haven’t heard of it, I hope you never do. The best way I can describe it is a lightning bolt of electricity that shoots at random times into your ear feeling as if someone quickly stabbed you with an ice pick. It then goes away and you never know when they will return to do it again. This pain was like that but magnified and more frequent.
There were times when I would just start crying because it hurt so badly and would have to just sit there and wait for it to pass. Pain meds didn’t help it. My chin feels like someone stuffed two metal plates in there and is unbearably stiff. Speaking was for the most part not possible with the wires and because it caused my jaw pain. Every conversation occurred via texts on our phones or written on paper.
A little over two weeks after surgery I returned to Gainesville where my wires were replaced with three industrial strength rubber bands. Easier on the mouth for sure, but still zero ability to open or close my mouth. They were stretched from top to bottom and the doctor struggled putting them in. I would have to replace them a few times myself at home which ended up being a two-person job that only became more difficult as the weeks progressed because my gums began growing over the screws. I did get better at speaking though and at the four-week mark began meeting with clients again because I could finally be understood. I learned I couldn’t meet with people back-to-back so I had to spread sessions out to give my jaw and muscles a break.
One morning when I awoke and checked out my teeth, I realized that I now had a large gap between my two front teeth which was being caused from the bands. Of all the trials and tribulations, I had already faced, this is what triggered me to start sobbing which I proceeded to do off and on for the rest of the day. In hindsight, despite everything, this was the only day I would consider to be a bad day. It wasn’t just the gap, but the remembrance of all the things that had happened to get there and all the things still ahead of me I would have to deal with which felt like a lot that day.
I already knew I was going to have to get braces once everything was over to hopefully correct my now misaligned bite. I was instructed I would need to have braces put on so that the bands could attach to them because they would need to remove the screws on my following visit. Getting metal braces on my teeth (I have already had them twice before for a total of five years) was not something I was excited about. While sitting in the waiting room, I heard a middle school age daughter very distraughtly telling her mother that she couldn’t believe she was going to have braces for a year. I refrained from telling her my history because I didn’t think it would make her feel any better. It definitely didn’t make me eager for my appointment which was a three hour visit where the doctor and her assistant pushed and pulled against my teeth and jaws to get the brackets and wires on. The doctor apologized multiple times for the pain she was causing me and I laid there with tears streaming down my face for much of the appointment. It was worth it when I returned to Gainesville for my last appointment and they finally took out the six screws that had been plaguing me for 4.5 weeks.
Prior to my surgery and even afterward, the outpouring of support from our tennis community at home was amazing. Many people asked what they could do for me which unfortunately wasn’t a whole lot. What they did do was provide food for Wojtek so that he would have one less thing to worry about. In my state, cooking food didn’t seem doable or a good idea since I wouldn’t actually be able to taste it before serving it to him. This was one of the many things I realized I never thought about before that we take for granted. As someone who prides myself on my cooking, not being able to taste things before either serving them or having to eat them myself was definitely a new experience.
Here are just a few of the many things I was unable to do and/or found uncomfortable doing with my jaw forcibly closed and having immense pain on all sides of my face. I was constantly surprised at how often I did things that involved using my teeth and mouth outside of just eating. As you read this list, I encourage you to try some of these with your mouth shut tight or with the idea of experiencing pain if something or someone touched your chin or sides of your face.
- Licking fingers
- Talking
- Opening a package with your teeth
- Biting off a hang nail
- Yawning (the absolute worst)
- Sneezing (the first time this happened was awful)
- Swallowing (who knew how much you used your jaw muscles while swallowing?)
- Kissing, hugging or leaning against someone
- Sleeping on your side
- Taking medicine (luckily most they gave me were in a liquid form but not all)
- Brushing and flossing your teeth (the backs of my teeth have not been brushed since June 4th)
Despite all of the hardships I have had and are still to come, I am very grateful that over five years ago I began intentionally practicing nasal breathing and taping my mouth shut while I sleep because I was a mouth breather at night. I have even worked on exercising at high intensities while only nasal breathing. I imagine someone not as adept at this would feel like they were not able to get enough air into their lungs.
In mid-May we had also made the decision to adopt two kittens which made sitting at home all day, every day way more enjoyable…most of the time (as you can see in the picture it wasn’t always fun and games for me).
Although reading smaller print has been difficult, I did get to catch up on some reading via my kindle where I could enlarge the type face. I have broadened my soup making capabilities and can whip up a very tasty gazpacho in minutes.
I’m grateful for my mom who gifted us with some money since I wasn’t able to make any for over a month since my job is almost entirely talking with people. I’m grateful for a husband who couldn’t do a lot to help me, but did whatever he could, when he could.
My finger and toe nails have never looked better as a result of not being able to bite them (my finger nails just to be clear) and not playing tennis. My digestion has been amazing because everything is easily digestible and it is really hard to put unhealthy things in such a narrow tube.
I don’t know yet what the future holds and not being able to move the left side of my face for another five months will be a challenge. After fracturing my jaw on June 4th, on July 22 I am beginning to try to move my jaw again. I write trying because at this point, I can only open my mouth about the width of one finger. I’m very aware it will be a long road back. In case you have never had a joint in your body immobilized for six weeks, the movement doesn’t come back quickly and there will be more pain ahead.
Before this happened to me, I thought I was resilient. It is a word I have used a lot in my work. I knew I could do hard things and bounce back from setbacks. Now I really know it. I know it with every fiber of my being. Apologies to future clients who tell me that any of my homework assignments are “hard” and I have a discussion with them about what “hard” is. I wouldn’t wish this on myself or anyone else and I know I still have a way to go for a full recovery, but I know I can endure hard things…..I just might not want to endure a hard court for quite a while:).