Bracketed

I know it's been several days since I posted anything coherent in here. I apologise and will try to catch up.

Last weekend I was more or less eating normally again. I was avoiding anything hard or that would require too much effort to eat, but I was determined to try and regain normality in my life.

Unfortunately it seems that I over-stepped the mark with the ice cream, when I bit on what must have been a piece of still-frozen cookie dough and realized that I had done something very very wrong to my jaw. So back once again me and San went to accident and emergency, where we spent most of the night. And they eventually told me what I thought I already knew -- the fracture in my jaw that was once non-displaced was now thoroughly displaced. And at 3 am they said "come back at 9 tomorrow morning".

The next morning my jaw was still too painful to open or close, and it hurt to so much as swallow. I must have looked like a retarded person, with my mouth hanging open and a glazed look in my eyes.

The hospital had lost my x-rays from the night before (thank you, NHS) so they had to do a bunch more and again told me what I knew -- that the fracture was displaced. And that it was going to require surgery -- either the wiring shut of my jaw, or cutting my face open and putting metal plates in it. They told me to come back on Friday.

So I did, though by now it wasn't hurting any worse than it was this time last week -- my bite was just looking kind of crooked. This time they decided that maybe surgery wouldn't be necessary, and have instead put brackets onto my teeth with elastic bands effectively holding my jaw closed. As uncomfrotable as it is, this has got to beat surgery.

In other news, I told my Dad that I slipped on some ice earlier in the week and fractured my jaw. He did ask how I managed to land on my face, but seemed to buy it. I suspect however that since then he has spoken to my older brother and told him my story and my brother has said he doesn't believe it -- and given my Dad his opinion that I must have been punched in the face.

I guess that Steve has been in more than his share of fights -- and I would expect that he started more than half of them. This is ignoring his competition-level Muay Thai Kickboxing of a few years back. So he'd know how a jaw gets fractured -- just like he could tell by looking at my arms that the scars are not burns, but instead from knives. I doubt even he would suspect them to be self-inflicted, though.

Just the same, I have insisted to my Dad that I really did just slip on some ice -- and I don't regret it either, my parents are worried enough that I'm apparently this clumsy. They don't need to know the rest of it.