As mentioned in my last post, I recently came down with a nasty case of bronchitis (my second this winter). The good/bad thing (depending on how you look at it) is that it happened over midwinter break, so I was off work and able to rest. I did just that, and felt like I was well on my way to recovery by the time the week was over. I was still coughing some, and had been for over a week, but it wasn't as bad as it had been.
Sunday afternoon, as I was cleaning up after making some delicious cupcakes, I started coughing. It didn't seem any worse than any other coughing fit I'd had that week, but there was one big difference. I don't know if I just coughed harder than normal or if it was the strain of coughing for a week straight, but an intense pain started to grow in my ribcage. I tossed it off at first as a pulled muscle or maybe an inflammation, but after a sleepless, painful night, it was clearly much worse.
Monday morning, I bit the bullet and drove myself to Urgent Care. The whole time, I kept thinking of Brian Regan's Emergency Room routine (below), when he talks about driving himself to the hospital. I thought of him again as I sat in the room and the nurse asked me how I would rate my pain on a scale of one to ten. I didn't say eight (though I thought about it!), and instead said six or seven. The doctor came in, did his tests, and told me what I'd suspected: I'd fractured a rib. From coughing. Not from doing something awesome, like wrestling a bear, or doing a sweet jump on a bike, or sky diving. Nope, coughing.
One week and several medications later, I'll be honest, I'm tired of having a fractured rib!! There's not much that can be done for it, so I take medicine, ice it, try to rest, and try not to complain (sorry about failing just now...). I admire people with chronic pain who bear it with a good attitude. It just makes me all kinds of crabby!! In an effort to cheer myself up, I decided I'd go back and re-watch some Brian Regan, and thought I'd invite you to join me. I have some exciting news I'll post about soon, and a new direction I might be taking this (or another) blog. In the mean time, here's to a few good laughs!! (Though not too hard...it hurts!)
