Leave It To Me

One thing I hear a lot from my friends is, "Something like that would only happen to you." I'm more than happy to once again lend support to their theory.

On Wednesday morning, I was pulling a shirt on over my head and somehow my right arm got stuck and tangled in the sleeve. After a short yet heated struggle, my hand was wrestled free and shot out of the sleeve, punching myself in the chin like King Hippo

Don't ask, because I don't know how it happened either. All I know is that when I came to, I had a bloody lip and a stunned expression on my face. I got myself cleaned up and didn't think much more of it, until I had to convince everyone at work that I wasn't starring in my own Judith Light Lifetime: Television for Women (and Ryan Eichelberger) after-school special. No major damage done, and I was back on track.

I woke up Thursday morning and could barely move my jaw for the excruciating pain on the left side, just below my ear. I manually moved / cracked it around with my hand, figuring that I'd just slept on it wrong. (Yeah...I know. Slept on my jaw wrong? I know. Get off my back, it made sense at 6 A.M.) I didn't think the lockjaw had anything to do with my violent attack on myself from the day before.

After consulting with Bone-in-Law (Bone Senior's hubby/dentist in training), he assured me that I'd probably just strained the Temporo-Mandibular Joint. His advice? You guessed it: take ibuprofen.

Seeing as how this was all starting to sound vaguely familiar, I think you know what came next: surfing the interweb for more info about my condition. Jackpot.

Straining your TMJ is painful. So painful, in fact, that it's best to keep your hair out of your face to avoid any contact with the affected area. Try a super-handy-super-trendy banana clip to sweep hair up and away in a fashionable manner, and don't forget to feather those bangs. Never hang dangly earrings from anywhere other than your ear lobe, as clearly this is only causing more strain. Most importantly, always remain subtly soft and blurry around all your edges.

Many of the websites also recommend that I "relax muscles with moist heat." While this sounds helpful, I personally choose to avoid anything that uses the word moist, unless it is followed by delicious best.

But here it is, four days later, and I'm eating My First Pears baby food out of a jar because my jaw was KO'd out of place by yours truly. Which brings us full circle to the point of this post : something like this would only happen to me.