When My Jaw and Chin First Got Broken
It was the Fall. The leaves were all turning yellow. It was my first year of high school. The school year had just started. It hadn’t snowed yet, but it was starting to get a little colder. I was 15 years old. It was later in the morning. It was actually hot in the hallway though because of all the kids. I remember feeling hot when I got up after they had pulled the kid off of me.
I was heading to third period, my class was mostly full of girls. I got into a fight with one girl in particular. We were both angry and called each other names. I thought that it was just one of those little fights until a few days later, I went to go to class and found the door locked. It happened in the hallway by my third period class. I grabbed the door handle, the lights were on but the teacher wasn’t in there. I turned around and the girl and her brother were standing there. He asked me if I had called his sister “a bitch.”
Kids were walking around going to their classes, but they stopped because they knew something was about to go down. He had light skin, he had on the school uniform, he was a little bit smaller than me. When he hit me, I fell to my knees. I didn’t even see his fist it came so fast. When I was bent over, I could see him getting back up, trying to get in a few more licks before the teachers got there. Everything was spinning, I felt dizzy when I got up. All I could feel was pain. I could only see people’s feet and legs, and then I saw his two feet coming towards me. He wouldn’t leave me alone until teachers and other students pulled him off of me. I thought the girl’s brother was going to talk to me, but he just hit me. I still can’t understand why he would just hit me like that.
Once I got up and went to the bathroom, I smelled blood. It was drying up, but it still smelled. It tasted like metal or something in my mouth. My jaw kept bleeding and bleeding, so they thought something must be wrong with my jaw. When my mom came to school, they told her I should go to the hospital. At the hospital, they told me that my jaw and chin were broken. They took x-rays and saw that it was fractured from my chin to my temples. I had a hole inside my chin that they had to fix and they also had to wire my jaw shut.
When they were putting the wires in my mouth, I was awake and I could see at least a couple of hands in my mouth yanking and pulling so that they could get the wires in the right place. there were at least 10 wires they were going to put in my mouth that they cut in half. After they put the wires in, it felt like whatever they put in my mouth was pushing into the skin on my cheeks. I could feel the hole in my chin with my tongue. I looked the same, but my jaw was swollen and it felt really different on the inside. I ended up having to stay home for 3 months, in great pain, and unable to eat anything but liquids because of my jaw.
This happened during the worst time possible, the holidays. I missed Thanksgiving and Christmas, the great meals, all that good food. I couldn’t eat any of it. Finally, three months had passed and I went back to the hospital where they put me to sleep so they could get the wires out. I couldn’t even open my mouth when I woke up. I had to stay at the hospital for a couple of weeks after that, learning how to use my mouth again. I have to admit, it was kind of fun there. They had games, DVDs, and lots of other things to make it more fun. I asked if I could stay in that hospital because it wasn’t that bad. Even when I got home, I had to eat soft foods, like bread. I couldn’t eat meat until a month later.
I was so angry about my jaw and chin being broken over something so little and when she was cussing at me just as much as I was at her. I had to keep the wires in my mouth for three months because of this little fight. I was really mad when Thanksgiving and Christmas came around and my Aunt Chiquita made all this great food but wanted me to stay home. She also didn’t want me to go to school, but I wanted to because I was starting off high school doing well and now my grades would drop and I would be behind. I lost 2 and half months of school, and I love school. I also lost weight, which is something I wanted to do, but not from having a broken jaw.
This event made me want to avoid fighting if I can because it can cost me so much. It would take a lot more for me to get in a fight now than it would have before this happened. I gained respect at the hospital and at home. I gained the respect of teachers for having the courage to come back to school and to keep on working hard to succeed.
