This Calls For Ice Cream

The root of one of my front teeth is still fractured… actually, now more severely fractured. Aka I deserve this.🍦A new x-ray revealed the break has further separated over time, which I could have told you from the increasing pain I endure all day every day. Despite being knocked loose in the accident, my oral team decided not to extract that one earlier because they thought it would heal, the bone fragments should have fused back together on their own, but, like everything else on this nightmare of a recovery journey, things are not progressing according to plan, protocol, projections or medical norms. So I have a new custom mouth brace fitted for the entirety of my upper jaw, which I must wear for a minimum of sixteen hours a day to act as a splint supporting that specific tooth, prevent further movement of my teeth from the mass within my lip (which is still very much there and still very much pushing on them), and realign my jaw that has shifted so far in the wrong direction, causing rising pain, aches and discomfort throughout my entire head. It makes me talk funny, but honestly, my speech is already so pathetic that it really doesn’t phase me too much, other than the new pain of cutting into my tongue, until calluses develop in a week or so. I am still only able to eat mush, blends and liquids, so you'd better believe that I earned a vegan ice cream stop (the locations of which often determine our routes to or from doctors’ appointments), for which I brought my own mason jar, upcycled from a friend’s recent delivery of creamy soup. My mouth is still bleeding multiple times daily, from the mass inside my lip that my reconstructive surgeon (also a maxillofacial surgeon, though not performing my oral surgeries) injected with various steroids last week in attempt to quell pain even slightly before we make a decision on the timing of my next facial and lip surgeries. Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of this whole situation. But I guess the mouth-brace-lessening-pain-in-at-least-one-tooth-and-my-jaw, despite cutting my tongue and chafing my cheeks, and the needle-treatments-and-injections-keeping-the-worst-of-lip-pain-at-bay, despite consistently bloody gums, should be seen as a win? Here’s hoping…