Neither Could Dylan

It’s been a bit of an insane year over here at the NCDilly camp, so let’s catch up quickly.

After last years failed attempt at moving west with my number one pal Dakota, we returned home. Winter was long and depressing as it tends to be, but I was happy about all the time I was able to spend with Dakota in between my freelance A/V work.

In early April, things took a terrible turn with Dakota’s health and I spent about 3 and half weeks curled up on the floor of my basement with him already mourning the inevitable. We got out for a handful of walks before he was too weak to continue them, and ultimately I had to make the gut-wrenching decision to let him go. He was 10 years old, to the day.

It’s one of those things you always know is going to come eventually, but you can never be wholly prepared for it. Part of me feels like I am still saying goodbye to him and I’m still so sorry I couldn’t do more for him. I miss him terribly every day. Life without him just isn’t the same and never will be. I was so fortunate to have had as much time with him as I did, he was truly special and he really did change my whole life.

In an effort to work through the grief, I threw myself back into working as much as I could. It’s really hard to come home to the spaces you used to share with someone, so I’d take pretty much every offer that came my way and it was gearing up to be a really busy summer. I was glad for that as I knew I needed to save some cash and pay back a bunch of things I’d let pile up again.

On June 2nd, the next terrible thing happened; I fractured my jaw in 2 places during the load-in of an event when, let’s just say a bunch of what should be normal safety protocols weren’t followed in any way and I ended up being a casualty of that. The stage decks won the brief battle that I wanted no part of to begin with and I went straight to the hospital. By the next day had my diagnosis from Mount Sinai; I would need jaw surgery to put the bones back in place and a metal plate would need to be inserted to ensure it stuck. I was just happy the accident wasn’t any worse, because it sure could have been.

Jaw surgery sucks. Or I guess just the recovery does. It was about a week and a half between the accident and my actual surgery, so it meant I had to be super careful and was basically just trying to manage the pain which was not as bad as you might think (fortunately). The real fear was making the fracture worse – every time I moved a muscle, even just lightly walking to the bathroom, my jaw with shift and I could feel the bones scraping against each other, none of them seemed to know where they belonged. Sorry if that’s a fucked up visual, but just imagine how I felt!

The surgery went as well as it could have and that was the worst day of it all after I came to again. I didn’t stick around the hospital for very long, just took my prescriptions and went home about an hour after I woke up. I knew I wouldn’t be any more comfortable at the hospital than I was at home.

For the next month or so, my jaw was essentially clamped shut with elastics attached to screws inserted into my gums holding it shut. I had to drink my water and take my pills through a syringe that I’d have to sneak around all my teeth and aim towards my throat. Taking the pills this way was an absolute nuisance because no matter how much I grinded them down to dissolve into water or juice, bits of them would still get stuck in the syringe. It was an arduous process to finish my daily meds.

After about a month I was able to get the elastics and screws out of my mouth, but at that point you’re still not able to eat really, but at least you don’t need to drink through the syringe.

I’d lost a lot of weight because of it all, so I started getting pretty experimental, blending up soups, burgers and lasagna into smoothies. Sounds gross, but actually tastes amazing when you’re as hungry and lacking in nutrients as I was.

Eventually I got clearance to slowly introduce soft foods and scrambled eggs have never been so good.

Anyway, I’m still healing from all of that. I’m sort of always moving my jaw around now because although I was told my bite is aligned properly, my teeth and everything just feel ever-so off compared to before. I still don’t have any feeling in a big part of my lower jaw near the plate because they had to cut my nerve-endings during the surgery and they say you might never get that back, so it’s always just sort of numb there and that kind of sucks. But I can’t complain about it, at least they were able to put me back together.

It took a while but I’ve gotten back to singing, too. I was really worried for a while that I wasn’t going to get back to this very quickly or even be able to have the same range (jaw-wise) as before, but so far I seem to be doing alright with it. I have to always be careful though, because my face and jaw get really sore if I over-do it now and that can be painful.

Fast forward a bit to late September, still rather overwhelmed by the grief of losing Dakota and disgruntled by the accident that led to my broken jaw, I decided it really was time to leave my home. I’ve said for years that there was so little keeping me there, and now it just felt like there was nothing left at all. It seemed like the longer I stayed, the worse things were getting and I felt like that trend would have continued and I didn’t want to see where the next bend turned into.

So I packed up a few things and I hit the road again – this time alone. Just ahead of this trip I released A Safe Place To Sleep in its entirety and hoped I found exactly that when I arrived at my destination.

I’ve been in Vancouver, B.C for just over a month now and I’m trying to give myself the fresh start I’ve been craving for so long. It’s really hard doing this type of thing on your own, I really commend all the people who have done so before me and that I continue to meet every day that are in their own way doing the same.

Despite the obstacles I continue to face, I do love it here. I’m steps from the mountains and trails, the air seems fresher, the beaches are just a hop and a skip away and traffic is nothing compared to what I’m used to in Toronto. The looming question around me is whether or not I’ll continue to get enough work to make this a true permanent change – lord knows I am going to give it my best. I feel like at this point turning back isn’t really an option; I am finally where I should be.

Since I’m starting fresh in every other aspect of my life, it feels like the right time to refocus Neither Could Dylan and make some new efforts here. I’m reinvigorated by the new sights and sounds here and excited to meet some new musicians and music fans. I’ve already played my first solo acoustic show where I played ASPTS in full as well as some specially selected tracks off Foxchase, Acceptance and Sprout and I’m really looking forward to booking some more as soon as I’m able to.

You’ll notice I’ve been making some updates to the website here and I’m still cleaning up some of my other channels (YouTube, in particular) to make it easier for you as a listener to find what you’re looking for.

I’m planning on working on some videos and other media to help promote A Safe Place To Sleep and I’m optimistic that I’ll meet some musicians soon who’ll be interested in taking these songs to the stage as full-band performances, but I know that might take some time.

While I work on all of that, keep an eye out for me at the local open mics and share A Safe Place To Sleep with your pals!

Thanks for reading all of that & hope to see you soon,

Jaimee