Well, the hits just keep on coming. I got hurt really bad this time.

Redstone

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Fri Nov-12-10 06:32 PM
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Well, the hits just keep on coming. I got hurt really bad this time.

I have severe postural hypotension, meaning when I stand up too quickly my blood pressure craters and I black out.

Just like that. No warning, no dizziness, just like a light switch shutting off. Or like when you're going under general anesthesia and they tell you to count backward from 100, and you don't even get to 99 before you wake up in the recovery room.

It hit me just over a week ago when I got up from the couch in my outer office and started to walk into my inner office, and because it's so instant, I didn't even have time to put my arms out in front of me, so I hit the floor with my chin leading the way.

The blackout only lasted five seconds or so, but when I woke up I found I had to spit some bloody Chicklets into the sink (which the same turned out to be five teeth). Then I got to work cleaning the blood off the hardwood floor. That wasn't easy, because I kept pouring more blood from my chin onto the floor. I did get the floor clean, though.

Fortunately, my older son was home that day, and he looked at the gash on my chin and insisted that I let him take me to the emergency clinic. (Even though I, as usual, insisted "Just give me a Band-Aid, would you?)

Good thing I let him take me there. Turns out that I had broken my jaw in six places (in addition to knocking out the teeth), gained my eighth concussion, and had broken three ribs. (That's in particular no fun; I've broken ribs before but they were lower ones - it's a different deal when you break ribs up high, it seems.)

So the emergency clinic had the ambulance cart me off to the Big Hospital, where they kept me in a neck brace for five days, and wired my jaw shut.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you ever have the choice, do NOT get your jaw wired shut. It's fucking miserable. The only good part (this is true) is that the doctor prescribed two cans of Bud for me with each meal of mush...he said that beer is a good way to get some carbs onboard and that it helps the pain medicine work, and gives the kidneys some work to do.

It was kinda neat, though, to spend five or six days talking like the old jaw-clenched Clint Eastwood; I was able to keep the nurses entertained with that. ("Ya feelin' lucky, PUNK?) Unfortunately, I looked like a criminal who had been hanged, because during and after the mouth / jaw surgery, a gallon or so of blood leaked down into my neck and upper chest. I was about 4/5th body and one-fifth bruise. Not to mention the swelling where they installed plates, screws, etc in my jaw during the 3 hours of surgery.

I wouldn't let Mrs R visit; I didn't want her to see me looking like that.

And, dammit, I didn't even have the pleasure of getting drunk before I fell. That would've made this story a bit more interesting, but I was stone sober when it happened.

But, hurrah, I got the vertical wires removed today so I can move my jaw and slurp down my pureed dinner much more efficiently. I don't mind so much having to eat / drink slurries for my meals because the process is much less messy now. And I still have the stabilizing wires in my teeth - now I know how the kids with braces must feel.

So it's going to be kind of a long road back; I'll need some heavy-duty dental work next month and of course ribs take forever to heal. But I have Mrs R and the Visiting Nurses who are going to set me up with some therapy to deal with my balance and blood-pressure problems.

I may be beat up, but I ain't dead yet.

Redstone