My Aching Ribs….
So, I don’t know which is worse at this point. The fact that I have to move like an 80’s robot in slow motion or the periodic waves of nausea that keep washing over me. I can almost see the skin on my own face turning green. You know, that little piece of nose that you can see when you close one eye?
OK, so I am going to say the nausea wins. No more codeine. I haven’t even taken it for 12 hours.
ughhh.
Yesterday I did a strange thing. I fractured my rib. Not skiing or high diving or rock climbing or paragliding or even falling off a horse. No, all those would make a much more enticing and memorable story…. memoir material, even. No, I hit my rib on the passenger seat of Ian’s honda civic. The seat was padded. I was seated in the driver’s seat. I just dropped a key and lunged a little too hard… no it doesn’t make sense. I can’t make it.
To be fair, it has been hurting for 3 weeks. Again, no big story here- just a bad experience with a “junior green” size aqua jogging belt. When I am aqua jogging, I like the belt to be really tight. I can’t stand to have it sliding the least little bit. (I have the same neurosis with running tights and nylons) Maybe I just like to feel secure or something… Anyways, the “adult blue” belts just can’t get tight enough…. so I was very excited to try the smaller green version.
First of all, I will confess that I have strangely shaped ribs. I used to be very self conscious of them when I was younger. They stick out. And the left one sticks out more than the right. This smaller belt managed to hit me right on that point. So, on one session about 3 weeks ago, I kept pushing it lower and pulling it tighter and tighter. Never mind that I couldn’t take deep breathes, and it hurt…. I figured it would be fine after I finished my work out…. but it wasn’t. I think it went out of alignment or bruised or something, but I haven’t done a sit up in a long time and since then getting out of bed even makes me cringe.
So, fast forward to hitting the rib on the passenger seat. Not something that would have even phased a normal ribbed person, but already being compromised- the pain was excruciating! I thought I was going to puke.
So I did what anyone would have done, I went to the dentist. (this is turning out to be a longer story than I thought). We all have our own weird things…. that we usually keep to ourselves. Well, one of mine is teeth. I have this wayward canine… that, um, stuck out a little too much (seems to be a theme here) in high school. So I got braces, just for 9 months or so. And yes, I am that person who still wears the plastic retainer most nights. 9 years later. well, until it broke last week. And a friend (dentist) said he’d make me a new one. So, I went to the dentist and pretended that everything was normal…. just stiffly and slow like molasses. 
Meanwhile, I am in running clothes on my way to practice and the thought occurs to me while I am lying in the plastic chair that I am probably not going to be able to run today. When I left, the labor of walking to the car was making my eyes water. And by the time I got to Ian’s office, I was almost hyperventilating because the pain was upsetting and I couldn’t breathe deeply. Talking hurt.
We tried going to the training room, but they took one look at me, touched me in the rib (I screamed) and they said we needed to go to the emergency room.
Now, anyone without health insurance knows, that those are SCARY words. That was the last thing I wanted… so we decided to try the health center on campus and an NP was nice enough to see me free of charge. He ordered X-Rays and gave me an Rx for pain medication.
The nice thing was that the X-Ray place gave me the medicare discount for not having insurance. And the drugs were really cheap. So, I feel like I made out pretty well.
(the same thing happened with the tow truck and my car earlier that day, but that is an entirely different story….)
My sister Heidi says that this should be the hardest year of my life… something about Saturn being far away….but I can’t remember. 2007 seems like it is pretty on par to me. Life hasn’t been easy since high school, and then I was bored. I do have a sense of humor. And I think I get a little more figured out with each passing year- at least about my self. (the world at large is a whole other story. The more I know, the more I realize how much I don’t know!)
But, best of all, I have a hell of a lot of stories. And perhaps most importantly, someone that really loves me.
Thanks for the information on topics.I was excited by this article.
Thank you again.
College online for good ideas.