That Day I Fainted and Broke My Jaw: Part 1

The Accident

I'm going to try and remember everything with details, so I apologize for a long entry. I'm in an insane amount of pain right now and I keep making spelling errors that I probably won't correct soon.  This whole mess started on Friday.  (Oh, and by the way.... this was my first trip to the ER, my first broken bone, my first stitches, my first surgery, and my first ambulance ride).

FRIDAY

I ate like crap on Friday. I even bought a big container of chocolate peanut butter ice cream to eat after dinner because I hadn't had it in so long and I was craving it like crazy. So on Friday night, I was home alone with the kids. I ate some ice cream, then some more, then some more... until I had eaten the whole freaking container. I think it was just under a half-gallon size, but maybe it was a little smaller than that. Either way, it was way more than I should have eaten.

The kids and I decided to watch a movie together. I was thinking about how I got so off track with my diet and I was feeling guilty about it, and I wanted to make things right with the kids at least by spending some time with them. Jerry was at work. We watched Wall-E, and at around 7:45, Noah fell asleep while lying on my lap.

I picked him up (he's about 50-55 pounds or so) and carried him to his bunk bed. I set him up on the top bunk, and he said to me, "Mama, I don't want to go to sleep yet." I told him that he had already fallen asleep, but I would put on a movie in his bedroom for him.

I walked over to his TV, turned on the DVD player, and then got super dizzy and nauseous. My vision went kind of black (like it does when you stand up too fast) and then I thought, "Oh no, I'm going to throw up this ice cream!".  I started walking toward the door of Noah's bedroom in order to get to the bathroom.

Next thing I knew, I was laughing kind of heavily and felt claustrophobic and just weird. My face was throbbing, and felt wet. I had no clue where I was or what I was doing. I kept trying to look around, but my head was just killing me.

Finally, I discovered I was on Noah's floor with a pool of blood under my face. I thought, "OHMYGOD, I actually passed out! What the heck?!" and then I tried to bite my teeth together, which caused more panic. My teeth felt SO MESSED UP. They wouldn't close together and they felt "floppy" or something.

My first thought was that I lost my teeth when I fell. I rushed to the bathroom, and started spitting out blood like crazy. It wouldn't stop coming out. I was rinsing out my mouth over and over, but the blood kept coming. I tried to scramble for the phone, but of course couldn't remember where it was.

Finally, I found it and called my mom. I blurted out, "Mom! I passed out! I'm bleeding!" and she kind of panicked and rushed over here. My dad followed her so that he could watch the kids while my mom went to the hospital with me. My mom wanted to call 911 to get an ambulance, but I really didn't want to go to the local hospital (which is infamous for killing people, really).

I had her drive me to a town about 25 minutes from here. I walked right in and they took me to a room right away (I was probably the only patient there). I had to explain the story a dozen times. They did a CAT scan and some blood tests to figure out why I fell.

My mom called my husband at work, and he drove to the ER. It was super foggy outside, so I was worried about him. At this point, I really didn't think that my jaw was going to be the big deal it turned out to be, so I wanted Jerry to stay at work since we need the money. 

The doctor came in and said, "Your jaw is MESSED UP. You can't stay here."  Haha, awesome. My jaw was so bad that they needed to send me to a place that specializes in trauma.

They transported me by ambulance to a huge hospital in Detroit.  The ER there was pretty bad. There were a lot of drug overdoses that came in, which I am so not used to seeing! They did another CT scan, some other tests on my heart and a arteries, etc.

Eventually, they just put me in a room to spend the night. They said I would need surgery on Monday.

Frickin MONDAY?!  Yep, I had to wait with a broken jaw from Friday to Monday.

It was kind of funny, too--I can't even count the number of times I was asked if I feel safe at home, if my husband did this to me, etc. They just said that the injuries I have seem way too extensive for a fall. I felt bad for Jerry, because people were giving him the evil eye, lol.

To be continued in Part 2: That Day I Fainted and Broke My Jaw, Part 2