Rachel…Making Accident Prone Look Good Since 1983

Welcome to another installation of Rachel pulling a Rachel. In other words, what ridiculous way have I managed to hurt myself this time?

Well, let’s just say, I’m currently managing injuries from head-to-toe.

Facepalm.

So where to begin.

Back in August, while leaving a friend’s house in the dark, I tripped and fell down.

No surprise there.

I mean, I have the unique ability to fall down while standing still.

At first, I was thrilled that I didn’t land on my face.

Let’s be honest…all the falling down I’ve done over the years, I’m not sure how I’ve gotten so lucky as to avoid landing on my face.

I’m always grateful when I fall down and my teeth are still intact.

As I got up to walk again, I noticed my big toe complaining, but I could still walk, so I didn’t think anything of it.

Turns out, when I fell, I went straight down onto my toe, causing it to bend the wrong way. A hyperextension, of sorts.

I whined about it a little and then watched, intrigued, as it turned a beautiful purple color throughout the next day.

But my feet have suffered worse than that and in assuming it was sprained, I opted to wait the 6-8 weeks for it to heal.

When three months rolled around and it was still acting like a toddler, I wondered what the fuck was actually going on in there.

Sure, I’d gone for a couple hikes, which made it angry, swollen, and bruised all over again, but surely that couldn’t be enough to keep it from healing.

After an x-ray and a trip to the well-regarded sports medicine ortho, I was crushed.

I went to the appointment hoping for a fix and to find out when I could start running again.

I left the appointment with neither of those things.

This, ladies and gents, it turns out, is my first broken bone.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

When I fell, I broke the end off one of my toe bones. The end of the bone is now healed and the broken off piece is nearby, but definitely not where it belongs.

This is where I’m a little miffed at having such a high pain tolerance.

Yeah, a high pain tolerance is great when you have to have your chest reconstructed or when you decide being an ultramarathon runner is a good idea, but not when you break a bone and don’t think much of it.

In other words, I’ve been walking around on a broken toe for the past three months.

So that’s a bummer.

It’s one thing when I can’t run because I choose not to. It’s quite another when I’m told I shouldn’t because my stupid toe is broken.

So that covers the toe portion of “head-to-toe” and now we can cover the head part.

I’ve been overdue for a trip to the dentist.

Blargh…dentists. If you want to feel guilty about not taking care of yourself, just go to the dentist.

This, assuming, you’re like me and don’t floss as much as you should.

I have the involuntary bad habit of grinding my teeth when I sleep.

And sometimes, when I go from being especially stressed out to slightly less so, my jaw muscles take on a mind of their own and fuck with me.

So last week, I woke up and my jaw wouldn’t close all the way.

Fuck.

Last time this happened, I was in college and had just come off the most stressful semester I’d taken so I could graduate sort-of on time.

I’d been super stressed and then the night I was slightly less so, my jaw decided to shift forward.

My parents’ long-time dentist told me that my orthodontist hadn’t considered my jaw muscles when he had me in braces. He explained that my jaw shifted forward to where it was meant to be and that my options were to get braces again (fuck no) or…

…to let him grind off certain parts of my teeth so that my jaw would sort of fit together again.

I opted for the latter and that did work, for the most part, for the next 15 years.

I told this story to my current dentist, who balked and asked if that dentist had even suggested muscle relaxers.

Um, no?

Well, anyway, I spent this past weekend taking three Advil three times a day to see if it would work. And it did…kind of! By Monday, I could sort of bite down, but still, not all the way.

So now I’m on muscle relaxers.

And I celebrate each time I eat and can chew more easily than the time before.

What a thing to celebrate, right?

I wish these muscle relaxers were more fun. I was expecting to feel all noodley and silly, but instead, I just go right to sleep.

I fell asleep during Ozark last night. Who does that?

Me. I do.

So. Moving forward from head-to-toe, because I must.

I get to look forward to three more dentist appointments, a foot MRI, and a very exciting trip to an orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon.

Who wants to go on vacation with me instead!?

That’s right…just laugh it off, Rachel, laugh it off.