I'm back.

I'm back.

So, for the past few months, I've been unwell.  If you really want the whole story, keep reading, or just scroll to the bottom for the one line TLDR.

Many years ago (about 18 or so), I was working on a shipping dock for a LTL freight carrier.  It was the middle of July, and it was about 105 degrees Fahrenheit on the dock, and about 140 degrees in the trailers.  

I was panting, and drenched with sweat as I leaned over a pallet of five gallon buckets I had just finished shinkwrapping to slap the copy of manifest and the hazmat sheet on the top, when one of the buckets, which due to a manufacturing defect hadn't been properly vented, exploded.  The lid blew off, and the contents with with it, straight up in to my face.  

That moment is seared into my memory.  Teddy (@dorondraconus for those of you who lurk about the discord), and the creator of the Reforged Roleplaying Game System was working across from me, and I'll never forget the commanding tone of his voice as I stepped back, spitting and trying to wipe the already burning sensation from my eyes.  

He said one word.  "Run."

And run I did, apparently, and this bit I don't recall, screaming in an ever increasingly high register "ACID IN FACE!  ACID IN FACE!"

Another friend of mine, Bob, caught me before I ran head first into the wall at the end of the dock, as by that point I was completely blind.  He guided me to the shower as Teddy called 911.

Thus began a journey that consisted of days in the hospital, multiple surgery, and daily visits to the doctor for nearly a year as everyone worked to save my vision.  

The acid had been concentrated floor stripper, and it was thick and viscous.  

Again, I had been panting from exertion and the heat, which is important, as it got into not only nose, but also my mouth.

You might think that this was the beginning of my supervillian arc, but Teddy and rest of my friends kept me from going down a bad road (While Bob actively encouraged it, but he's always been a little gremlin).

The end result was that I now wear rather strong prescription glasses, and I'm unable to wear contacts or have lasik due to the extensive scarring.  Also, as one of my new super powers, I can no longer cry, as many of my tear ducts had been seared shut, which also means I get to carry around eyedrops.  

Further, the acid that went up my nose cleared up a very, very nasty sinus infection that my primary care physician and two specialists just couldn't figure out how to beat.  It also robbed me of my sense of smell, which is, in and of itself, a superpower of sorts.  In hindsight, that was the moment I should have switched to a career in waste management.  

Finally, I was left with a wonderful collection of scars, most of which can be hidden by my beard.  Considering my face looked like, and I must rely on others here 'raw hamburger', I'm grateful that it wasn't worse.

It wasn't until almost two years later when I went to my annual dentist appointment, that realized that something else might be wrong.  I had four cavities.  Now I'd had a few cavities in the past, but never four at once in a one year time span.  Six months later, I realized that was a gap forming between my two upper front teeth.  

At that point, I started paying attention.  I discovered that I was actually brushing away the enamel from my teeth.

When the accident happened I'd swished some water around my mouth in shower and spat it out, but everyone (myself included, as much as I could be, as shock is a wonderful thing) was much more concerned with my eyes. 

The acid did a hell of a number on me.  

Over the next fifteen years, I underwent fourteen root canals, and eighteen crowns (turns out they don't last forever).  The few teeth I had left were in terrible shape, and unsurprisingly, I suffered from frequent infections, including abscesses.  

If you've ever suffered from an abscessed tooth, you likely know just how painful that is.

Which leads us up to May of this year.  After having lost weeks of time due to pain this year, I decided to pull the trigger, and have my remaining teeth removed, and have implants installed.  For anyone unfamiliar, this a surgical procedure where they screw in six titanium bolts through your gums and down into your jawbone, then torque down a titanium plate with cubic zirconium teeth to aforementioned bolts.  I needed this done to both my upper and lower jaws.

Unfortunately, arranging this surgery took much longer than expected.  I was originally scheduled for the 3rd of June.  The surgery didn't actually happen until the 23rd of September.  In the interim, it became apparent that I had made this choice not a moment too soon as my teeth began to deteriorate even more rapidly.  I had multiple stays in the hospital to treat the infections and four separate rounds of antibiotics.  

During this time, for over three months, I was in constant pain, varying in degrees from a four to an eight on the 'Jahx has had his ankle crushed by a forklift and a bucket of acid sprayed in face' pain scale.  I obviously wasn't writing, and was often forced to result to unpleasant measures to handle the pain when I needed to be both ambulatory and lucid for Mom.  

Luckily this happened during the summer, the longer days having a positive impact on her sun downers syndrome. 

The surgery itself was uneventful.  I was under a general anesthetic, so I don't remember any of it, although the sheer brutality of having that many teeth removed and those bolts inserted left me nearly unrecognizable.  (They made me shave my beard, which didn't help.  I look like a kid without my beard.  Also, scars.  So a scarred kid)

We're at the two week mark now, and my daily pain level is sitting around a one or a two.  I'm fully functional again, or at least mostly.  I'm having to relearn how to speak, which is a little frustrating, and solid food is a challenge I've not attempted yet, but being more or less pain free is a relief that I find difficult to express.  

The good news is that I can write again.  

(That's it.  The whole tale.  Moral of the story is don't look deeply into the acid searching for wisdom.)

The TLDR is that I'm mostly better now, and back in action.