Chatbug Karen

This week’s Heads or Tails theme is about bravery. We have been asked to think about a time when we felt brave or showed bravery.

I had to think way back to when my daughter was three years old. She is 28 now so I dug way back into the recesses of my mind. Not really; I don’t think I will ever forget the day my daughter broke her jaw.

Stacy was three and was always a very active child. She loved to climb on everything and when I say that this child had no fear, I mean it. No wonder she flies in helicopters with the Coast Guard these days. LOL

We invited friends to join us for dinner and they brought their two boys who were about 4 and 11 years old. The kids were playing nicely and we were preparing to put dinner on the table. All of a sudden, Stacy came running into the kitchen and was trying to tell me something. I couldn’t understand her because she was talking but the words were jumbled. Her mouth seemed cockeyed and I thought she was being goofy. I asked her to close her mouth and talk to me. When she said she couldn’t close her mouth, I thought I would pass out. To say I needed to get instant term life insurance quotes online meant I thought I was going to pass out! My husband, our friends and I asked the boys what happened and tried to figure out what was going on. Stacy wasn’t crying but something was not right.

The boys said that the three of them had been swinging on the porch swing and when the boys jumped off, the swing flipped over. Stacy flew off the swing and her chin hit the cement. She had one of those ring type suckers in her mouth, which the doctor thought prevented her injury from being worse than it was. From the x-rays taken at our local hospital, we learned that her jaw bone was knocked out of the socket.

The doctor on call at our hospital thought that if we held our daughter and he pushed hard enough on her jaw bone, he could push it back into place. Ummm. NO! Can you imagine? The Lord saved that child from sheer agony because something in the back of our minds told us this was not the thing to do. We called the oral surgeon who had removed my wisdom teeth a few years prior to this day. I thought highly of this doctor and felt he knew more about teeth and jaws.

The doctor met us, after hours, at his office where he took a look at the x-rays we brought with us. What he saw was that the jaw was not only knocked out of the socket, the tip of that bone was broken. It would never have popped back into place by pushing. That was when I thought I would throw up. I had to keep it together though. Our daughter was trusting me to be brave.

It was decided that braces, just like the ones to correct the position of teeth, would be applied to Stacy’s teeth. Rubber bands would then be placed from the top bands to the bottom bands and would slowly pull the jaw bone back into place. The doctor hoped that as the slow movement of her jaw being pulled back into position took place, the muscle at the top of the bone would pull the broken piece into position and it would heal on it’s own. If it didn’t work, she would need surgery.

Stacy was on codeine to help with the pain. I don’t remember her ever crying but I know I did.

She had the braces on for weeks and she went on about her business of being a three year old. She couldn’t chew so she had to drink a protein drink a few times a day. She actually gained weight!

I don’t really remember how long she had the braces on but I am guessing that after 6 weeks, the x-rays showed her jaws were re-aligned and the bone had been pulled back into place. No surgery was needed. Shew!

Just this year, Stacy had the Invisiline braces put on her teeth. She wanted to straighten her teeth a bit. The orthodontist could tell she had broken her jaw and questioned her about the misalignment of her jaw bone. We didn’t know there was any sign of her injury. Apparent to a trained eye, there is a misalignment. She has had no after affects. She is a lucky girl.