So as is the case when I usually sign up to play a new organized sport for the season, I get injured in the face. A few years ago it was an elbow to the mouth as a girl was going up for a rebound, last summer it was a fist to the nose as a girl was running towards home plate and I was waiting for the throw (why she didn’t use the safety bag is beyond me, and most recently it came full circle and I sustained ANOTHER elbow to the mouth in basketball defending a layup.

I should really start wearing a football helmet when I play any organized sport.

Anyways, I went down immediately on Wednesday night, but my primary concern was my braces. I really shouldn’t be playing with my Invisaligns in, but I didn’t think that I would get hit in the head again (I mean, what are the odds). Almost immediately after impact my upper lip started swelling and ballooned to double the size (I would post pics, but it’s gross). Taking out my top Invisalign I examined it and let out a sigh of relief that it wasn’t cracked (I really didn’t feel like forking over $250 for a new tray).

Then I rinsed out my mouth and made sure I wasn’t missing any teeth. Some slight bleeding along the gum-line of one tooth, but other than that the skin wasn’t broken on my lip (I’m pretty sure my braces acted kind of like a mouth guard in that sense).

After I got an apology from my perpetrator, I got a ride home from one of my team mates. Luckly I had some Ibuprofen on me, so I took two. I also had a ziploc bag handy and filled it with snow to ice down my lip on the way home, and iced it a bit more before bed.

It wasn’t until the morning when I saw that the swelling was still prominent that I called up Telehealth Ontario. I never called them before, but after remember seeing some commercials and some stuff on the government website, I decided that some help from a nurse practioner was needed.

The call went so smoothly. I was only on hold for about 40 seconds after the initial operator picked up, before a nurse took my call. After answering a few questions about myself and my injury she was able to give me some great advice on a remedy, and told me that it would be approximately 2-3 days for the swelling to go completely down, and to watch out for signs of infection if the swelling increased at all over 2 days. Also noted that I should rinse with some salt water, stay away from any spicy or hot foods while my lip was swollen.

Took the day off work obviously (as tempted as I was to tell my students that the reason for my busted lip was that I got in a bar fight), and continued to ice it (Freezies helped and were oh, so tasty) and take a couple Advil every 4 hours.

The swelling did go down a lot and as of 36 hours later I was able to back to work without looking like I was it a UFC fight.

So, thank you Teleheath Ontario for your super-friendly, quick and helpful assistance.

Telehealth Ontario offers free access to a Registered Nurse 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They can be reached at 1-866-797-0000.