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Various updates

9 May

In no particular order, here are the latest pieces of news that relate to my jaw in some way:

  • I’m now able to open my mouth pretty far. I can get my fingers far enough into my mouth to floss normally. There isn’t quite enough space to brush the back teeth normally, but it’s getting close.
  • I made an appointment to see my dentist in a couple of weeks. I would have liked to do it sooner so I could get the chipped teeth repaired by the time I’m able to chew again, but the receptionist at the dentist’s office said I should wait until I can open my mouth further.
  • When I called the dentist’s office, the receptionist remembered me when I explained that I had chipped my teeth in an accident but had to wait to get them repaired because of a broken jaw. I guess this means my injuries are at least somewhat distinctive.
  • I gave somebody driving directions yesterday for the first time since the accident. I don’t know why, but I like giving directions, even though I dislike cars. This time, I shouted the directions halfway across the street. It was satisfying.
  • I’ve been able to incorporate some kiwis (the fruit, not the bird) and bananas into my diet.
  • I got another packet of rubber bands from the oral surgeon on Wednesday, but already, I’m running low. The quality of these rubber bands is inconsistent. It seems like at least two thirds of them break  the first time I try to put them in my mouth. Those that survive this initial hurdle may last for a day or more.

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Rubber band shortage

5 May

As I expected, the rubber bands weren’t enough to last me the full three weeks. In fact, I’m on the last three already. One of these three is much thicker than most of the others have been, so it restricts my jaw movements more than it probably is supposed to.

I’ll have to call the oral surgeon tomorrow morning to see if I can get more.

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Sunday food

3 May

I’m very much aware that I’ve been writing a lot more about what I’ve been eating since getting the wires removed. At first, this seemed backwards. I thought that what I ate on the more restrictive liquid diet should have received more attention because it was more abnormal. Having thought about it some more, though, I think there’s a pretty good reason for the way things are. On the liquid diet, I ate pretty much the same thing every day, so there wasn’t a whole lot to say. I’d have several smoothies, a serving of Vega, and a can of soup. Now that I have more options, of course there’s more to write about.

With that said, here’s a summary of today’s meals:

  • Breakfast was the usual oatmeal, but today I increased the portion, starting with a cup of dry oats rather than half a cup.
  • Lunch was a soy yogurt plus variations on a couple of things I’ve eaten in recent days. One was chinese noodles with miso. I decided to try this as a substitute for ramen after I realized how salty ramen is. The first time I read the label of a package of ramen a few days ago, I was impressed to see that it  had less than 200 milligrams of sodium. However, I took another look yesterday, and I realized that I had read the wrong line, confusing the number for potassium with the number for sodium. In fact, a single serving has over 1000 milligrams of sodium, so I decided to do something a little different today. As with the ramen, I added some silken tofu. This time I used firm silken tofu, which has the advantage of more protein. I had no difficulty swallowing it without chewing. The other half of lunch was a can of refried beans with shredded tortilla bits. I realized after the fact that I ate the refried beans much more quickly and comfortably than I did on Thursday.
  • Dinner was a bowl of tamarind lentils from last night.
  • Dessert was Purely Decadent soy ice cream with Latchkey Lime Pie, from a recipe of Isa Chandra Moskowitz at Post Punk Kitchen. I actually made it last night, but it finished too late for me to try it. I used a graham cracker crust (Arrowhead Mills brand) because I was looking for something crumbly. It was a great pie, although the texture is a bit more gelatinous and less creamy than a typical key lime pie. This was fine with me, but it’s not something I’d serve to an omnivore to prove that vegan food can be normal. Or maybe I just don’t want to share my pie with anybody. I ate two slices and a couple of tiny slivers, altogether adding up to about a sixth of the pie. For what it’s worth, I think the graham cracker crust worked very nicely. It crumbled in my mouth as I had hoped, and the lime filling infused it with a very nice flavor.
  • A while after dessert, I remembered that I had four mangoes, which were on sale at Whole Foods last weekend. I decided to try one which seemed ripe. It was good, but perhaps not as ripe as I should have let it get before eating it without chewing. I tried, with varying degrees of success, to crush little pieces of mango between the roof of my mouth and my tongue. It all went down, but I think it would have been better to wait a little longer for the mango to soften. The remaining three mangoes will wait a bit longer.

Incidentally, I think today is the first day in four weeks that I haven’t eaten any smoothies. I actually like smoothies, but enough to be make me want to have as many as I had while wired, so this is something of a milestone.

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Rubber bands

3 May

For the three week period following the removal of my wires, I have to have rubber bands in my mouth to keep my teeth returning to the right position. Now that I’ve been wearing them for a few days, there are a few things that seem to be worth mentioning:

  • Unlike the rubber bands that I wore on my orthodontic braces in junior high, these go right at the front of my mouth. They’re probably pretty visible to people when I talk to them, although I’m not really one to be too bothered by that. Most of the people I talk to in the course of a day have some idea of what I’ve been through over the last few weeks, anyway.
  • When I first put in new rubber bands, they taste (unsurprisingly) like rubber. In case you’re wondering, I’m familiar with the taste of rubber from licking an eraser in second grade.
  • Fortunately, I am allowed to remove the rubber bands to eat. It takes some restraint on my part not to eat all the time as an excuse to leave the rubber bands out.
  • For the first day or two, after a meal I’d find that I was having trouble figuring out where my teeth should be resting, and the rubber bands were helpful in straightening things out. By now, my jaw is finding its resting position even before I get the rubber bands back in.
  • These rubber bands are very prone to breaking. I had two break in the first section I taught on Thursday and one in the last section. Often, rubber bands will break when I try to put them in for the first time. The oral surgeon only gave me a small envelope of rubber bands, and I’ll be surprised if it lasts until my next appointment (which is Tuesday of next week).
  • Yesterday, I noticed the rubber bands making some squeaking sounds when I opened my mouth wide. I wondered if this was a sign that I’m able to open my mouth further than I previously.
  • Sometimes when I’m walking around, I’ll notice that I’m clenching my teeth. I don’t know if this is because of the pressure applied by the rubber bands or because I’m used to having my jaw wired shut. I also don’t know why this only happens when I’m walking around.

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The state of my mouth

2 May

I’ve been unwired for a few days, and there are a few things that seem worth mentioning at this point.

  • I still can’t open my mouth very far, and I can’t really tell if it’s improved any. The Google knol on jaw fractures says “[it] will take a lot of effort on the patient’s part to re-obtain facile use of the jaw.”
  • I still can’t really brush the insides or tops of my teeth, but I was surprised that even from the first day, I was able to floss in between most pairs of adjacent teeth. Yesterday, I purchased some CVS brand Dental Flossers, apparently an imitation of a product called Plackers.  These allow me to floss without putting a finger in my mouth, which is helpful. For everyday use, these would seem wasteful, but given the circumstances, I don’t mind using them.
  • I left a message for my oral surgeon on Friday to see if I should be doing something about the discomfort I was experiencing, but I haven’t heard back. It’s generally feeling, better, though. I don’t know if this is actual improvement, or just a reflection of the fact that I didn’t talk much today.
  • The arch bars are held in place by some wires around the teeth, and these move around a bit now that my mouth can move. Not surprisingly, this can be uncomfortable at times.
  • For a while, I thought that eating, and specifically sucking, was creating some discomfort in  my jaw. I realized, though, that it wasn’t the bone but the gums near the wires holding the arch bars in place that hurt. Obviously that way it doesn’t make me worry that my jaw will break again, which is good.
  • I’ve noticed that the right side of my mouth tends to open a little bit further than the left side. I’m not sure if this is something that will go away over time.
  • When I first opened my mouth after the wires were removed, my top and bottom teeth felt sort of soft or mushy against each other. It occurred to me today that it no longer feels this way, but I have no idea when things changed.

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More eating wirelessly

30 Apr

I had a nice breakfast of oatmeal today. It was probably the closest thing to a normal meal I’ve had in a while. I did cook it for a little bit longer than the package directions so that I’d be more comfortable swallowing it without chewing.

As I slurped my oatmeal and tried to plan my next meals, I realized that my refrigerator and cabinets are badly prepared for this diet. I bought several bags of pasta last weekend in anticipation of my upgrade to wireless, but with my no-chew diet, those will have to be blended. This is not to say that it can’t be done, but it will take some time. Somehow, I also allowed myself to run out of soy yogurts, even though I usually keep those on hand  regardless of my diet. My supply of Vega, which I had not intended to continue using after the wires came out, is also very low.

For lunch, I packed a smoothie. Not having soy yogurt, I used soy protein powder, almond milk, peanut butter, and frozen berries. It was a very chalky, which I attributed to the soy protein powder, although I don’t recall the powder doing that to the smoothies I made before my supply of Vega arrived. I also planned on using a serving of Vega upon my arrival in the office. With the smoothie and the Vega and a few leftover brownies from yesterday, I made it through the long teaching day. I was certainly hungry when I got home just before 7:30, but not unbearably so.

For dinner, I had a can of refried beans. Yes, I had the whole can, and I ate it directly from the can with nothing to accompany it. It took almost 40 minutes to eat the can of beans because I can still only open my mouth wide enough to take very small spoonfuls. Occasionally, upon sucking on a spoonful of beans, I’d feel a little bit of pain in my left jaw. I washed the beans down with another smoothie, this one containing almond milk, frozen blueberries and mango, and peanut butter. With my dinner, I also started taking the calcium supplement I bought before the surgery. I didn’t take it while I was wired because I figured I was getting enough calcium between the Vega and the enriched milks. Now that I’ll probably be taking less of the Vega, and I can swallow tablets, I decided I might as well take the calcium supplement.

For dessert, I had some more brownies leftover from yesterday and a whole lot of Purely Decadent. The brownies seem to be getting a bit harder, so I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to eat them. I really don’t have all that many left (perhaps a third of the recipe), but I don’t feel the slightest bit ashamed of my gluttony.

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Wireless eating

29 Apr

In anticipation of my upgrade to a wireless jaw, I went to the office this morning with a number of foods I thought I’d be able to eat. For a late lunch, I had brought the remains of the tamarind lentils–unblended–that I made on Saturday. For snacks, I brought some golden nugget mandarins, a couple of mangoes, a bag of Tings and some brownies I made early this morning to celebrate the occasion.

The lentils, I realized were too solid to eat without chewing. Had I used brown lentils, I might have had a chance at  slurping them, but I had used French lentils, which keep their shape better.

The first thing I actually ate wirelessly were the brownies. I used a recipe from Don’t Eat off the Sidewalk, which I had made once before. It was a perfect recipe for the occasion in that the brownies, aside from being delicious had a melt-in-your-mouth consistency, which was perfect for somebody unable to chew. I hadn’t anticipated the difficulty in opening my mouth, but I found that by breaking the brownies into large crumbs, I was able to enjoy them.

I then had a few of the Tings. They aren’t particularly soft, but, they’re full of air, so they dissolve after sitting in the mouth for a few seconds.

That was all I ate before I took all of my leftover food home. At home, I had some pasta with sauce, but with a little bit less sauce, and blended slightly less than yesterday. While eating the pasta, I realized I was out of practice with using a fork. Often, I’d raise a forkful of food to my mouth, only to have the fork stop when it hit my teeth. After finishing the pasta, I blended the lentils, but not quite as much as the last few days.

For dessert, I had some brownies with Purely Decadent vegan ice cream. I had stocked up on the ice cream at the Grocery Outlet (for $1.49 a pint!) while I was wired, but found that the flavors I had gotten (So Very Strawberry and Chunky Mint Madness) were not suitable for consumption through a straw.

At least so far, it seems like the expansion of my diet with the removal of the wire is not particularly great. I may even end up having another smoothie tonight.

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Apparently my friends are the problem

28 Apr

Via Google, I found an informational piece about broken jaws. It told me,

Because the most common causes of jaw fractures are the result of motor vehicle accidents and assaults, the best prevention is to drive carefully and choose your friends wisely. A more realistic step that can be taken is wearing protective devices in sporting activities.

If only I had chosen my friends more carefully. . . Seriously, though, are a large proportion of assaults between friends? This is definitely news to me.

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Nightmare scenario #2

27 Apr

Lately I’ve had a scenario considerably worse than the first nightmare scenario in the back of my mind. It involves slipping and falling or perhaps twitching in some other way (maybe even just absent-mindedly yawning!) that results in my mouth opening and applying too much pressure to my jaw. As the nightmare goes, the opposing pressures from the muscles and the wires result in another fracture (or even one on each side), leaving me wired for a few more weeks.

I have no idea whether this is even something that could realistically happen, but that’s not going to stop me from worrying about something.

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Three week update

27 Apr

Sunday was three weeks after the update, so I might as well post an update on things.

  • I’m no longer wearing any bandages on  anything. This is good because I was almost running out of bandages. The abrasions on my hands and elbows are all but healed, with only small scabs left behind.
  • I still haven’t been successful in shaving my face completely, but I haven’t put much effort into that.
  • The pressure in my left ear has faded considerably over the last few days, which I suppose means that the swelling around the site of the fracture has subsided.
  • I bought a hand blender on Saturday, thinking it would be useful when I was having trouble getting all the lumps out of something with my full blender, but I haven’t found anything to use it on yet. At this point, it was something I could have done without, but I had become somewhat frustrated with having to put things back in the blender to get the last few lumps out.
  • I still haven’t even started looking for shoes to replace the ones that were splattered with blood in the accident and were  falling apart even before that. This is one thing that veganism makes difficult. If I recall correctly, I found my last pair on a site that seems to no longer have its vegan shoe section.
  • I keep forgetting to mention that I was somewhat succesful in pureeing a veggie burger last weekend. It was a Dr. Praeger’s Sensible Foods California Burger, which I had previously noticed would fall apart if microwaved. Usually, of course, I don’t want my burgers to fall apart, but for pureeing this seemed ideal, so I microwaved a burger before throwing it in the blender with some water. It didn’t blend perfectly, and there were plenty of chunks caught in my wires when I finished, but most of it found its way into my stomach. I probably won’t try that again, but I wouldn’t consider it a failure.
  • I continued my streak of masochism by attending two more Earth Week events with vegan food on Thursday. I also had to turn down food samples at the city Earth Day celebration on Saturday. My jaw will be ready for Earth Day next year, though!

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