On Saturday morning I woke up and couldn’t open my mouth.
Hold on, that’s not quite true. I could open my jaw so my teeth were about two inches apart, the same as if you put in your thumb in sideways. I’ve been trying to think of funny ways to tell this story, but in truth this discovery short-circuited my brain into an anxiety attack. At 6.30am. I’m not too sure how I could dress that up and turn it into teh funneh.
A trip to my GP was useless, telling me I had to give it time, to eat soft foods, it’ll come good. Hard telling someone that when it’s a logistical nightmare to get some soggy weetbix past their lips, let alone chew it. Long story short is I have to ride this out until I visit a specialist (which, luckily, I already had an appointment for) next week.
To be honest I’ve been steeling myself for this next development. Thanks to anxiety my brain tends to leap forward and catastrophise situations and this kind of mindset is something I’ve been working on working my way out of, if that makes sense. So when my TMJ issues turned into this lockjaw*, I may worry but there is also a little part of me that goes, “Okay, well, here we are. Now deal with it.”
I can still talk and drink and smile. Brushing my teeth is painful, as is eating. But it is stemming my nail chewing, which will raise a praise the Lord, from my family. Hopefully the specialist next week can help. While I am trying to be zen and calm – and it is working – I can’t deny the wish that I really, really hope this is only temporary. Some Google searches tell me otherwise, but then Google can be a bit of a pessimist.
Oh, and my latop seems to have finally gone kaput after nearly five years. Bummer.
But enough about me – how was YOUR weekend?
*Edit: on second thoughts ‘compromised motion’ would be a better description than ‘lockjaw’.
