Splat into 2007!

Warning - not for the squeamish.

So I thought my first post of 2007 was going to be full of what a great time we had in the UK (and we did) and then I thought it was going to be about how one of the nice things about going away for Christmas is that you come home to lots of beautiful Christmas cards instead of just bills (and it is).  How wonderful it was seeing FOUR, count them four friends receive referrals of their gorgeous daughters (and it was).

However, on Tuesday, our first full day of being home, my face and the floor had a major disagreement.  Deep in thought I wasn't paying attention as I took the tiny 4 " step that we have between our bedroom and the bathroom, I was wearing socks but no shoes and my foot slipped and then I'm not sure exactly how it happened but I hit the floor hard, really hard and face first.  I have grazes on my hand that suggest I tried to break the fall but that my hand slipped on the exposed stonework we have in that room, the central chimney stonework is right there and its beautiful but unforgiving on human skin.  I have a huge bruise and swelling on one leg that suggests I tried to twist sideways to avoid my face hitting first but to no avail.

OMG the blood, so. much. blood. I just lay there for a few moments softly saying "oh no, oh no" over and over.  I didn't want to scare Lulu who was with me but thankfully  not in my arms. Although I probably wouldn't have fallen if she had been since I would have been paying attention.

I knew immediately that I had knocked out teeth I just wasn't sure how many, there was blood everywhere, did I mention the blood, OMG the blood!  When I finally did get up I knew one top front tooth was gone and the other 3 front ones felt like they might be about to join their buddy at any moment.

I didn't cry when it happened, I didn't cry when I called my dentist to say I was coming straight in, I didn't cry when I called Simon to have him meet me there so he could take care of Lulu.  Not when my dentist said that what was left of the broken tooth couldn't be saved because it had split and that the other three had horizontal stress breaks and may or may not be okay. 

I didn't cry when I got to the other dentists office and he removed what was left of the broken tooth and wired the other three.  It was after work hours and he had stayed on specially for me but he needed to be somewhere else in 45 mins so he worked fast, very fast.  I nearly cried when he asked me "are you okay Sweetie?" as a 42 year old, grey haired, morbidly obese woman with smashed up teeth I am far from being a "Sweetie" but it was somehow very comforting to be called that.

I wanted to cry when I came out, mouth full of blood soaked gauze, head aching and not able to talk and Lulu who I had heard calling for me the whole time suddenly wanted Daddy instead.  Her look of fear/concern was heartbreaking.

I didn't cry all of yesterday but then this morning I think I finally realized what I had done and all the dental visits and $$ that are ahead of me and I wanted to cry so much - except its hard because of the swelling and I'm terrified of jiggling the 3 wired teeth so I just teared up a bit instead of having the full scale sob I wanted. 

All the way through it  I have been telling myself how, much worse things happen, and God knows they do, much, much worse things.  I didn't die, I didn't loose a limb, our daughter is fine, we are all just fine.  The dental assistant kept saying how well I was taking it all and I just kept thinking about a young girl I had heard about on the news that morning - she had died when the car she was a passenger in hit black ice.  Oh yes, much, much worse things happen all the time.

I know if your going to break/loose any part of your body your teeth are probably the most easily replaced "item".  So I do have perspective, honestly I do but I still can't stop myself from having the occasional wallow in self pity and I can't think about it too much because it makes me shudder.

So, not the best start to 2007, certainly not the start I was expecting but maybe it'll be okay, they weren't very pretty teeth, it wasn't a beautiful smile, yeah if anyone was going to knock their teeth out mine were probably the best ones to go!

I hate that I can't really kiss Lulu and I have to tell her to be gentle with me in the new strange muffly voice that is produced by my bruised and battered mouth.

I find myself walking very tentatively now as though I don't trust myself not to fall over again, I feel like a total klutz who can't even stay upright!

Oh well, it'll all seem better tomorrow, or the next day or the next - right?

p.s I wouldn't recommend this as a diet strategy but it is very hard to eat with a smashed up mouth.

p.p.s I've cleaned up all the blood but if your very good and if I can get brave enough to look at it again I might post a photo of the chunk I took out of the floor.  Oh yeah, any floor that tries to mess with me can expect some serious scaring, although I think must impartial judges would still deem the floor to be the winner.