So I always prided myself (I don’t know why!) on not ever having broken a bone. I never had a cast, never had a fracture, never held a bent arm crying to my mom in the car on the way to emerg. It seemed impossible, so many people around me have had casts or splints or such at some point or another. I fell, got scrapes and stuff, but no broken bones.
But then today I went to the dentist for a full exam and he got a full X ray of my jaw. Then he asked if I had ever had trauma to my face. And I have, cause I got punched repeatedly by this pissed off girl when I was 17. I didn’t know her, her and her two friends jumped me and my friend on the street. The irony was that they were Native too and we were on our way to a show called Native love. ANYWAY yeah I got punched several times in the face and didn’t go down, just kept trying to talk my way out of it until some women jumped out of their car and chased them off.
Anyway, as it happens I have some broken bone in my jaw. 17, 18 19 20 . . . I have had this broken bone in my jaw for 21 years. And yeah, my jaw HAS had some pain now that you mention it. But I assumed that was TMJ. Which my dentist says it may very well be. But still, there is literal BONE floating around at my jaw joint. And I saw the X-ray, they are tiny pieces, but noticeable, on the left side. Little round pieces. So the dentist isn’t going to do anything about it right now, it’s not really being a big issue, but he wants me to limit snacking and not chew gum and wear my mouth guard every night. Also one of my teeth is getting a crack in it, from pressure, so the mouth guard thing is super important.
The mouth guard recently got a crack in it. But better that than my teeth.
It makes me wonder what other damage has happened to me that I am completely unaware of. I always felt trauma was more of a mental thing, I remember after I got beat up that one time I was so jumpy and afraid of going out in public for a while, and Saskatoon IS a rough town sometimes. But that took a while to get over. That’s what was affecting me. But meanwhile I also had these bone fragments in my jaw and a developing cataract in my eye. And I didn’t know that until way later.
I don’t know how professional boxers do it.
Tomorrow I am going to my psychiatrist to talk about potential ADHD. So that should be interesting. I heard the gold standard diagnosis costs 1000! Which seems ridiculous, why do you have to pay for a diagnosis in a country with supposedly free health care? I guess I will find out tomorrow. Of course, he might be one of those terrible doctors who treats me like a baby. I don’t think so though. He assessed me before to see if I needed a med change, then recommended stuff that I had a reaction to. Which would have been okay if he had done follow up instead of leaving me with my GP who doesn’t know anything about psychiatric medications.
Sigh.
Anyway, I should sleep, so I can be bright eyed for my psych appointment.