2016 Advice

This is my 2016 advice to you:

Don't break your goddamn jaw.

I did it for you so please, for the love of the bébé jesu, learn from my example.

I'ma tell you what sucks. Not previously realizing you have a real love of chewing and being able to open your jaw. Goddamn you hindsight!! Even the most delicious broth for days can cause one irrational dips in happiness. You can rinse like your gums owe the swishing water money and still not clear out all food particles (aka debris) which prevents your traumatized gums from healing on up (especially if you have necrosis of the gums). You can hate strangers for being able to drop their lower jaw for a burger's safe passage and seriously contemplate throwing a Big Mac in a blender. Envy snakes for their graceful ability to unhinge. 

Also in the learning from me department - don't metaphorically chew off your own arm instead of asking for help. You are not the hero of this story. Until the end, whenever that is.

Do be grateful when every doctor asks to feel you neck and requests you do a range of motion that you didn't break your neck. You coulda, but you didn't. (Praise hand emoji)

Do rinse all the goddamn time though. Also, write down questions you muse about while holding down the couch so if you have a light crush on the resident you keep following up with you won't use the time thinking, 'Your eyes are so pretty.' (seriously, shout out to Mt Sinai for teaming with hot doctors! Shout out to Dr. Mike, you are a fucking fox. With pretty eyes) 
The answer is no btw, the plates in your mouth won't set off any airport security so vacay away!

Also! Shout out to Drugs! For for painlessness and making you think you are saying flirty things while throwing sultry looks when in fact, your face is a balloon surround by ice logs to bring down the swelling. Loved the ice logs. Sure I'll blow you. a Kiss. ...We're not flirting? You're checking on my facial range of motion. Huh. Strike the previous sentiment. Unless you feel it too. Just me. Carry on! 

Do work for a company that sends you gifts so when you're caught in a whirl of depression and not feeling like you deserve to be depressed since it's not the worst ever, you can bounce out of it enough to get back to self care.

Do listen to Kanye's Through the Wire - "I drink a Boost for breakfast, an Ensure for dessert / Somebody ordered pancakes, I just sip the sizzurp" (Weep. Preach Kanye) but stop if you start down a path of why am I not creating art from my strife and then follow that down a you suck as a person trail. So maybe mostly a don't. Ensure is expensive too and doesn't taste great, make your own smoothie. Way more happiness. 

Oh! Also, don't think that after a couple weeks of being on saline and then broth think you can party like a rockstar as you will pass the hell out and make your friends think you are choking on your vomit and are about to die. They HATE that. I wasn't choking btw, my blood pressure dropped without blaming any herbs.

Keep your expectations low. You know you can't open your jaw! So when your doctor tells you to eat anything you want, please keep in mind they mean if it's wafer thin. And soft as hell. So not anything you want.

Find things that make you feel good, a lot of things since you will also spend a lot of time feeling bad. And not recognizing your own face. Also, don't get mad at people when they say you wouldn't know you had an accident! You look the same! They are trying to love you and just because you feel you look like Sloth from the Goonies, doesn't make it true and take love where you can get it.

Caramel sticks to dentures. I know, you didn't expect to learn that lesson so soon but there it is. Probably anything that you knew about braces is true, if you had them. I had perfect teeth....
Also don't be gross. Go get Polident. I know, it chafes to buy the denture cleaner you associate with your grandparents (rest in power Betty and Jim) but I mean, you know cleanliness is next to not looking like a crusty skag. 

Get outside. It gets increasingly easy to say I'm going to leave the house then 4:00pm rolls around and you say it's too late to leave the house. Hiding gets more comforting, no one can see you feeling less than. It also starts to hurt and gives you the opportunity to make up really terrible stories about yourself that you won't be sure aren't true. They're not true. Nature will re-center you. 

Do let yourself feel bad. Don't get into the suffering Olympics and denigrate your own experiences. Also, no one is staring at you. You're passing through their field of vision and they are as obsessed with their own lives as you currently are. 

Do use those experiences to have more empathy for others. Think about how your Pollyanna ways make everyone think everything's okay and know that other people's "I'm fine" isn't super true either.

Do appreciate a health care system where for a multi-day stay, so many drugs, so much morphine, major surgery, follow-up checkups didn't cost you a thin dime. Thanks Canada!!

Don't hate your dentures. You had a job that let you pay for them. They were an option open to you. They cause you to blend back into crowds and take away a whistling lisp. One day you will bite into a burger again. It's hard to be super delighted using a knife and fork for burgers and pizza but at least you are eating them. Also, Judgey Eyes! I'm not doing this to be super precious or not eat as much. Maybe I'm projecting judgement into your eyes. And I do appreciate the forced slow eating in a way. I'm all over the place. 

As one of my favourite couples (oh hey L/D) say - Comedy always wins. Roll through everyone calling you Jaws, snaggletooth, Wires, etc. They're happy you weren't more badly damaged and they are bouncing back with you. Find the humour in the situation, it's there and it will get buried from time to time. That's cool.

Don't worry about implants, they're months down the road assuming you heal well. This is a life lesson in planning ahead and having a safety net fund, that will save you some worry. I didn't have one and so that'll be 2017's advice. Also, finding random streams of income so you can afford the $10K+ expense of a three, pleasepleaseplease only be three, implants. They are not giving them away.

Also, if you fracture your hand only get a splint so you can observe if your knuckle is healing in an 'L' shaped way. Half casts are the devil. Also, you can't push your bones back into place. You'll never get back the hours you try. It does lend itself however, to whatever story you want to make up if people notice and comment. Oh this? Yeah, I had to deliver a giraffe in Burkina Faso. 

Never forget the power of a living room dance party. You deserve to be transported. And you didn't break your legs. When your gums reject a piece of bone randomly, get that shit dipped in gold and hang it on a necklace. Enjoy looks people give you when mention it's your bone. Also, ask them if they want some lotion. 

Just in general, a mirror hung at your face height above your door handle with the words of the items you love to leave behind (teeth, phone, wallet) is incredible at making forgetting a thing of the past! Mostly. 

I'm not done my journey with this, like I'm not done with anything really, but I appreciate the kindnesses shown, unexpected joys, laughter in the depths, new health habits. 

I'm like Ma$e - can't nobody hold me down, oh no. I got to keep on mooooovin'

a haiku:

Not unbreakable
phoenix ability, rise
be unstoppable 

xo 

A