Graduation and a Broken Jaw

Susanna got off her braces! She's excited to be done with that chapter in her life and I think her teeth look really good.

Everett graduated from seminary and from high school! He enjoyed high school but is glad to be done with getting to class and sitting through boring lectures.

His good friend gave him the flower lei. I had trouble finding him because I didn't know about the lei.

Garrett broke his jaw. Not so fun. The real complication was...

...that graduation and the broken jaw happened at the same time. Garrett called me as I was getting ready to go to seminary graduation. He had been a little overzealous in an intramurals Ultimate Frisbee game and had hit his jaw on someone's head. He had trouble closing his jaw so he had a friend take him to a nearby Urgent Care.

I went to the Urgent Care and sent him to the emergency room with his brother while I went to seminary graduation.

They did a CT scan and discovered his jaw was broken. After I got there, the surgeon splinted his jaw together and then told us to come back the next day for a surgery to fix it.

Scott came home the next day from a business trip and was able to take Garrett to his surgery while I went to the high school graduation. The surgery started late and Scott missed almost all of the graduation but was able to be there for pictures at the end. We had our son Jan and his wife Sallie come stay with Garrett during recovery.

We headed back to the hospital after pictures. Garrett looked pretty miserable and hurt a lot. Two metal plates were installed in his jaw and will be there permanently. His teeth are rubberbanded shut and he can't open them at all, even for a straw. He feeds himself with a syringe stuck in his cheek and the liquid getting through the teeth. No chewing for the next six weeks. We've been feeding him lots of high-calorie smoothies so he doesn't lose too much weight. He's lost some feeling in his chin--hopefully that will come back. He also has a loose tooth which might need a root canal when this is all over.

He stayed at our house from Wednesday night to Tuesday and then went back to his apartment. He's taking classes right now and needs to be close to campus. He's remarkably cheerful considering what an ordeal this seems like.

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