A broken bone and Napolean Dynamite

Welp, neighbors. Do I have an update for you?! Where have I been? Let me tell you a story. A few weeks ago, I was running on my favorite route on a gloriously lovely fall morning…when I tripped on a root, the road, a toad, or a boot? I have no idea. But, down I went. And, my chin took the full brunt of it (which required stitches). Well, my chin and my jaw (which is broken) took the full brunt. I barely had a scratch anywhere else! What in the world! I called my hubs and told him I was headed home, bleeding, and needed to go to urgent care to get stitches in my chin (not at all thinking my jaw was hurt since it wasn’t hurting). A few hours later in urgent care and then the ER and then a scan and then…well, you know how this ends. I was diagnosed with a broken jaw. Thankfully, it didn’t require surgery. But, it did require no jaw movement. For 6 weeks! Yep, you heard that right. No smiling, no talking, no laughing, no EATING HAMBURGERS AND FRIES AND NACHOS (my current cravings that I can’t have unless I blend it up which I refuse to do). Let me tell you what I’m learning about healing - how it’s hard, long, you-can’t-speed-it-up, and, well, it happens. Slowly, but surely. It’s healing.

1. Healing is weird. Time seems to fly by when everything is ‘normal’, doesn’t it? Have you ever said, “Where did February [or any other month] go?”? Weeks can fly by without noticing, and all of a sudden, bam, it is Christmas. But, when you are forced to slow down, when you’re waiting for something to heal or happen, when you have to count down the days, time goes slower. At least for me it is. I’m usually an efficient and ambitious person. If google maps says it will take 15 minutes to get somewhere, I’m wondering if there’s a more ‘efficient’ route to take.

   

   I maximize and optimize and strategize work and dinners and home. I don’t multi-task (because that’s a myth to me). But, I do try to optimize my day, my health, my work…Healing, though…healing is a whole different ballgame. Sure, I googled “how to speed up healing a broken bone” a bajillion times and read all the interwebs wisdom about making sure you have enough bone broth, Vitamin D, calcium, protein, protein, protein. Immobilize the bone and rest. Hydration. So, you betcha, I am doing it all like a star-student-overachiever-highfunctioning-adult. But, guess what? It just simply takes some time. This all helps, no doubt. But, it’s not like my broken jaw is healed in 2 weeks because I optimized everything. That’s not how healing works. It still just takes time. Day by day. Week by week. The body does its job, slowly, to rebuild what was broken. It has mechanisms and stages to get through. It takes time to rebuild delicate structures. And, it’s been fascinating to me. I am learning to try to just ‘be’. To let the healing happen, slowly. Is it frustrating? Yep, at times it is! But we are now a few weeks out and I can begin to feel the jaw strengthening. Was it my awesome Vitamin D and calcium intake on top of bone broth and oak milk and more bone broth? Maybe a litle. But, I think it was more just time. I’m certain there’s a lesson in this. For me, the day-to-day monotony of waiting-for-time-to-pass-and-please-hurry-up-a-little has me in the moment for now.

   That means I pay attention to my dogs more (which they love) and I notice that my dahlias (which I thought were done for the season) are showing off!

   

2. Healing is tunnel vision. Before the no-hamburger-broken-jaw situation, I could drink some water while petting my dogs or putting up the dishes. Or eat while working. Now, though, I have to pay attention to what I’m doing - carefully. With a broken jaw, it’s hard to drink or eat, especially the first few weeks, and I can’t just willy-nilly eat whatever and whenever. I have to make sure I don’t move my jaw too much (who knew we moved the jaw while doing so much!), and that takes effort. Slowing down to eat and drink (well, everything is a drink right now, but I’m trying to call it ‘eating’ so I won’t be so sad. ha!) takes so much more time now than it did. I think there’s a lesson here too. Healing takes some concentration on minor (that are actually probably really major) things.

   

3. I JUST WANT TO SMILE! My kids (who are both teenagers) keep laughing at me at random times of the day. They’ll say, “Mom, I don’t think I’ve ever seen not smile”. This is weird.” or “Hey mom, remember that time at the party when you smiled the whole time about a little baby you didn’t even know? Like you really smiled, not the normal person smile but, like, you were so happy for that kid smile. Yeah, that was weird but you always do that" or “It’s so quiet right now”. ha! At least they remember a happy mom. I didn’t realize how much I smiled until I couldn’t do it. Last night, I was blending my broccoli and cheese soup with a boatload of oak milk (hello calcium!) when the blender, unbeknownst to me, de-attached. I picked up the HUGE blender to pour, and OUT went the entire contents on the counter, me, and the floor. I had to LEAVE the freakin’ kitchen to compose myself because we were laughing so hard and I can’t laugh! Oh my word, guys. It took me a few tries to come out of the bedroom again because I would take one look at my family and start laughing again. Whew, laughter and smiling are medicine, friends. This injury won’t last and healing will happen. Again, it just takes time. But, what a weird season of being quiet? Not only quiet. But, non-smiley quiet (what’s a word for that?).

   This week, I’m talking a bit better and ‘smiled-ish’. I say ‘smiled-ish’ because it reminds of the scene in Napoleon Dynamite where they are doing glamour shots and he says to think of seahorses - which makes me want to laugh - which makes me have to leave the room and compose myself - which doesn’t work. Onward we go! Maybe next week, I’ll have more of a smile and laugh. We’ll see. Until then, I’m ‘smiling with my eyes’ and running into the other room to compose myself multiple times a day. It’s hilarious!

   

   I did do my smile-ish this morning for my family. “Hey guys, watch this!” (said through gritted teeth). Then I showed my smile-ish and one kid asked if I hurting. bwahahaha! And, cue me running to the other room to quit laughing. And scene. Also, every time I try to contain my laughter I sound like the DMV scene with the sloths from Zootopia. Which makes me laugh even more.

   

4. Disappointment is real. Because of the broken-inconvenient-and-unfortunate-jaw, I’ve had to cancel 6 speaking engagements or travel events. 6! This season was, by far, the busiest I’ve had in a while, and I was really looking forward to all of it. So, I’ve had to pivot against my will and, again, just wait. Thankfully, people are so gracious and I’ve been able to reschedule things or work around events. People have stepped in and covered meetings I couldn’t lead. And, I’ve done my best to type out what I could to help. But, then I’ve just been sad. Life goes on, I know. But, man, curveballs come at ya sometimes and you just have to roll with it: disappointments and all. So, I’m trying to do the best I can to pivot and laugh about it at times.

   

Well, that’s all for now, neighbors. Sorry for the weird update, but I wanted to let you know why I’ve been a bit quieter the past few weeks. Onward we go towards healing. Onward we go to smiling. For now, I’ll do it with my eyes and try not to laugh.

In solidarity (and so tired of bone broth and blended-up-everything),

Emily