Managing a Broken Jaw on a Vegan Diet

Last Friday started off like a normal day, I headed out for an early morning run so I would be home and ready for grandchildren to start arriving. Half way through my run my normal day ended abruptly. I tripped on a small lump of dried concrete on the road surface and fell, my chin took the brunt of the impact and I now have stitches in my chin and a broken jaw, along with a compression fracture on my 7th vertebrae and a lot of scrapes and bruises. Thankfully Dave had not yet left for work, a quick call home, thank heavens for cell phones, and he came to rescue me and took me to the ER. I met with an orthopedic doctor later in the day and the vertebrae fracture is clean and stable and nothing to worry about, carry on with normal activities. The jaw break however is really a pain.

Again, thankfully, the jaw break is a small, clean fracture, but it has made eating an absolute chore. I called an oral surgeon, I am seeing him today, and was advised to eat soft foods only in the meantime. Believe me, even soft mush food is a challenge. I was amused by the advice given for a soft diet, eat pudding, mashed potato, macaroni and cheese, ice cream, milk shakes. I thought well that is fine if you are not vegan but what am I going to eat.

Well, thank goodness for the invention of the food processor, it has made eating somewhat tolerable. I thought why can't I just make my usual bowl of vegan goodness, lentils, beans, canned tomato, nutritional yeast, Brussel sprouts, kale, red cabbage, mushrooms and any other vegetable I fancy, lately I have been on a parsnip kick, and then run it through the food processor. Well it has worked well, it is a stodge for sure, thinned down with a little veggie broth, very, very tasty, just not that appetizing to look at. And, I know that I am eating a nutritious meal that is giving my body all the things it needs for healing, rather than a bunch of dairy and sugar that simply promotes inflammation. I am also enjoying blue berries and banana with almond milk, it is a nice smoothie and gets some fruit into my diet along with my veggies. So, really my diet hasn't changed much, it is simply food processed before I eat it :)

I love my morning oatmeal, and thought it would be easy to eat, it is not so easy, my morning bowl of oats and ground flaxseed is taking me around 40 minutes to eat. My vegan bowl of goodness stodge is taking me about as long, small, small spoonfuls at a time are all I can tolerate. And, swallowing is the worst, it pulls on my jaw and hurts. I never thought I would look at mealtime as a huge time commitment, and even worse, kind of dread eating, as I know I am going to feel sore when finished.

Well on the plus side, no loosened teeth, and none knocked out. All will heal, but it was certainly an unexpected turn of events and one I hope I never repeat. I feel rather fragile, as if I am cautiously creeping about, and I am very wary of being bumped into, or bumping into things as my body seems to be in an over protective mode, I am assuming in a few days this will pass and I will start feeling hale and hearty again.

Peace to you,

Bean