healing

Yesterday I received my first visitor--my friend Emily came to keep me company while my partner was at work. It was nice to catch up, and I finally felt presentable enough to see people. The scrapes on my nose and forehead are almost healed. The upper lip and chin still look a little rough, by my beard has grown long enough to hide it, mostly. I seem to have some numbness on my lower lip and chin--probably nerve damage. I've also been seeing a chiropractor for my headaches, and he tells me that my top-most vertebrae (C1 and C2, which connect to my skull) are slightly knocked out of place. It's a big relief to get adjusted. I still don't sleep all that well at night, partly due to headaches and partly due to a bunch of canker sores in my mouth. Even my uvula has a canker sore on it, and it's swollen to double its size...yuck.
At any rate, I'm looking and feeling a lot better, but still sleeping a ton.
Thanks to everyone for the good thoughts and healing energy!

If you want to read a slightly gruesome account of my injuries, read below. Otherwise, don't read further.


I think I landed first just below my nose, which pushed it up and dragged my top lip down, creating a tear running across the bottom of my nose and down almost to my lip. It didn't completely sever my lip. My lower lip was dragged down and back, tearing it away from the gumline down to a nerve that runs along the bottom of my chin. This was kind of cool: the surgeon said he had just finished sewing up a surgical incision that looked really similar...so in other words, I effectively ripped my lip--with surgical precision--down to expose a nerve, without actually damaging that nerve! I also managed to pack that incision with large amounts of sand, gravel, and dirt. I also tore my chin open in about an inch-long upside-down U-shape. I scraped most of the skin off the center of my nose, running up to my forehead, and one of the nosepieces twisted up and gouged a chunk out of between my eyebrows.
I also got a variety of scrapes on my elbows and knees, and a fair amount of gravel embedded in my right hand.
And--remarkably--for going 15-20 mph (I think), that's really all that happened.