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Face Plant
By Janett L. Grady
September/October 2009
First of all, don't get me wrong; my favorite place in the whole wide world is Washington, DC. After all, I grew up in College Park. Sidewalk maintenance could use a little work, of course, but other than that, DC is my kind of town.
As for sidewalk maintenance, let me explain.
Back on the last day of my vacation, I did a face plant.
Here is how it happened. During a stay with Mom and Dad, I got up early one morning and went for a run. I was doing my usual five miles at about 5:30 a mile, nothing too strenuous for a superbly conditioned athlete like myself. Rounding a corner, I was suddenly face to face with three young toughs bent on doing me harm. Using my best impression of a martial arts expert, I fought back, disabling two of the three with a series of spins and well-placed kicks. When I spun around with a kick at the third, he managed to grab hold of my foot and twist. Arms flailing, I landed on sidewalk, face first.
The results were not pretty.
Okay, okay, that's not what really happened.
What really happened was that I was out for an early morning trot when I stepped in a hole and turned my ankle. Some combination of physics and aging reflexes dictated that the first thing to hit pavement was my face.
The results were not pretty.
(I figured I could tell any story I wanted because there weren't any witnesses. I know that because as I cried my way back to the house, I didn't pass anyone paralyzed by laughter.)
Anyway, the results were not pretty. The first result was that I bled all over myself, not to mention the sidewalk and the inside of my Dad's car.
The second result was that my Dad and I spent six hours in the emergency room. Why is it that everything happens so quickly in emergency rooms on television and so slowly in emergency rooms in real life?
After four of those six hours, a nurse walked over and asked, "Are you bleeding?"
Sorely, I nodded.
"Do they know you're bleeding?"
I nodded again.
"Okay," she said and walked out of the room.
After X-rays and a CT scan and a couple of examinations, the verdict was: broken nose, pushed-in teeth, and fractured facial bones.
Believe me, among the phrases a woman does not want to hear from a doctor is "fractured facial bones."
"The bones over the sinuses here in the front of your face are very thin," he said. "It's kind of like an eggshell cracking."
It will be a while before I eat hardboiled eggs again.
Anyway, I'm back home in Alaska now, and since my face plant in our nation's capital, I've been to several doctor appointments and to more than a few dental appointments. Here it is, months later, and my face . . . .
Well, the good news is that I'm no longer bleeding. The bad news is that any place my face is not scabbed over it is black and blue. Any place it is not either of those, it is yellow. I have a new bend in my nose and braces on my teeth, which is like having a mouth full of barbed wire.
I'm not complaining, mind you. Considering what has been happening to our soldiers in Iraq these days, I got off easy. But I have not been doing much. It's kind of hard going out of the house when you expect people to take one look and start screaming.
Soon, I'm told, I'll be as pretty as I ever was. (Some goal that is!) The swelling and bruising will go away and the doctor will finish reconstructing my nose. The last time I saw him, he said he needed a good photograph to work from. I've looked. I haven't been able to find one that is just right. Maybe you can help. Do you have a sharp, full-face photo of Miss America I could borrow?
Just kidding.
Janett Grady lives and runs in Palmer, Alaska, and spends time with her mom and dad in Washington, DC whenever she gets the chance.