Unexpected ER

Hope you had a great St. Patrick's Day. Mine was certainly unique.

Last night while having dinner (thankfully I was nearly finished), I heard a bone pop in my jaw and suddenly I couldn't close my mouth at all. I had food in my mouth which I had to spit out because I was afraid to attempt swallowing.

This was freaking me out because after 2 weeks of recovery with no significant pain aside from the first couple of nights, I was experiencing piercing pain from my mouth to my left eye, across my left cheek, all the way to my ear. And swallowing was one of the most painful things I've ever endured. It was even causing pain in my throat glands.

After a few minutes of not being able to get the jaw to snap back into normal position, I was freaked out enough to call the doctor at 9:45 PM. He suggested I apply heat to it and try to relax for about 15-20 minutes to see if it would pop back into place. He seemed to think it was a muscle seizing up on me, not a bone issue.

I was in such agony that I could not relax even for a minute. txrad drove me to the emergency room. They gave me a Valium, hoping that would relax the muscle. It didn't help although it did make me silly by around midnight. Unfortunately I was still in too much pain to even enjoy the silly feeling.

They gave me a Vicodin and did another CT scan once the machine "warmed up" which took maybe 45 minutes! We waited quite a while for those results to come in. Finally I was released around 3:00 AM and given a 2nd Vicodin for the road, so to speak. (Glad txrad was driving!)

I was in bed by 3:45 and slept surprisingly well. I awoke at 8:10 this morning, still unable to close my mouth, but it wasn't as severe as last night. I've been in varying degrees of pain today but none anywhere near as severe as last night.

I did have an unexpected 3-hour nap this afternoon but guess I needed it after the trauma of last night and little sleep.

When I got up I had a message from the surgeon on my phone. When I called him he confirmed that it was a "boney issue" rather than primarily a muscle issue causing the lock-up. He's also going to try and arrange to have my surgery done Thursday afternoon as soon as my physical exam is completed around 5:00pm.

I'm very optimistic this will happen even though it's only 12 hours ahead of the scheduled surgery time on Friday morning. Every little bit helps when pain consumes you.

I guess if you don't see a post here by Thursday evening, you'll know I'm knocked the hell out, so to speak!