As I laid on the couch, the afternoon peeled away, passing much as Monday had done. It suddenly occurred to me that I felt tense, especially in my jaw, and curious, sat up to work my mouth. I was not nervous, nor had I need to be, yet the jaw clamped tighter still. I placed my hand on either side of my face to gently knead the apparently cramped muscles. "This is crazy," I thought. "A Charlie horse in my face!" I rose from the sofa, searching my mind for a reasonable solution to this dilemma. "I'll brush my teeth..." I flew into the bathroom, squeezing paste on my brush, and began to scrub viciously. Nothing improved. I looked at myself in the mirror just as a transformation took place. Having no control over my jaw, the bottom row of teeth pulled to the left, straining against its natural alignment and audibly cracking as it contorted my entire face. "Mom... I think I've got a problem." She came and looked at me, her eyes widening at the spectacle before her. "I can't control my jaw"; the obvious statement I blurted out of the side of my mouth made us envision the only possible cause we could ascertain; LOCKJAW. Mom dialed the motel's front desk, stating firmly that her little girl had to be driven to Emergency right away, then grabbing her purse, her only essential, pushed me out of the door. We ran to the lobby where a driver was ready and waiting. "How embarrassing," I thought, looking down to shield my face from view. "A pimple on your face is nothing!" Scrambling into the car, our transit was soon in progress. Meanwhile, my jaw had taken on a personality of its own. As it had formerly brought my bottom teeth to the left, it now forced its way to the right. Not content, it again pushed to the left. This continued all the way en route to the hospital, while I was wondering if I had come in contact with a contaminated needle and Mom calculated how soon I would die! Once at the Emergency unit, Mom tried to give the doctors and nurses a coherent explanation of my situation as we saw it happen, as well as to alert them to my enlistment in the chemotherapy program, while they stared at me with disbelief. They nodded in response to the information, then allowed us to sit in a room by ourselves. A nurse came to the door, briefly surveying the scene, and wordlessly departed. I looked questioningly at my mom who shrugged her shoulders; "Maybe she had the wrong room..." The time crept by while my mouth humored itself with further acrobatics. Bored with the lurch-to-the-right, lurch-to-the-left routine, it opened wide, beyond my greatest expectations, and remained thus for several minutes. I was lucky that there were no flies buzzing about; I could not have impeded their entry except with a rapid flick of the hand. A nurse looked in, then darted away.