I had a really bad day on Sunday. I felt absolutely awful. I was beginning to think there would be no end to my misery. I asked Steve to rub my back with the hope that it would somehow sooth the raging fire in my chest and back. Then, we made a discovery. There is a rib, a single rib, that when you press on it, causes me to scream and burst into tears. Pressing on it reproduces the chest pain, shortness of breath, pain down my right arm and up into my jaw and the pain in my back. This is absolutely delightful news. Because it means I knew what to do. Being an athlete, muscular-skeletal issues are something I can relate to and know how to treat. Been down that road enough times, my friends! So I rooted through a huge pile of expired medications in the medicine cabinet. I searched for muscle relaxants and powerful anti-inflammatories. I discovered I’ve been hoarding narcotics since 1996. Sadly, those are so expired I’m too afraid to take them. I discovered some anti-inflammatories and some valium that weren’t too far gone. (My cut-off was three years past expiration.)

As SOON as the valium kicked in, for the first time in more than two weeks, I could take a deep breath in. I almost started sobbing with relief. I called the urgent care clinic and asked if they could pull my x-rays and see if there was a fracture in my ribs. I found out that even though I had many x-rays and ct scans of my chest, they were not looking at my ribs and therefore would not be able to tell if they had been broken. I called and left a message for my internal medicine doctor and continued to self-medicate but he never called back. By this morning, I was feeling a bit better. Unfortunately, when the muscle relaxant wears off, the chest pain starts up again. However, I was hopeful. I was also pissed that the doctor never called back. I had a visit scheduled with my rheumatologist this morning to follow up on my knee. He started asking questions about the problems I’d been having. To my utter delight, I found out that he practices internal medicine too. Holy God, I could have saved myself 2.5 weeks of pain and torture if I had known that. I’m not particularly fond of the internal medicine doctor I had been seeing who practices across the hall. His bedside manner leaves something to be desired and he’s always in a rush to get to the next patient. But sweet Jesus, I LOVE the rheumatologist. And he thinks that I indeed might have cracked my rib. He wrote me some prescriptions for muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatories and a patch that has lidocaine in it to put on top the skin. I love this man. I told him he was my hero. FINALLY SOMEONE IS ACTUALLY TREATING ME. He told me to come back in two weeks. If my rib is still angry he wants to run some tests, like a bone scan. But for the first time since this nightmare started, I have hope that I am going to get better.

I’m sure this is leaving you all with many unanswered questions. Like, why the doctors never even looked at this possibility when it seems fairly obvious. Every single doctor I saw, it came up in conversation that I had a son in a wheelchair that I was lifting, and my heavy workout regimin. And yet, no doctor even suspected since there was no “trauma.” (I failed to mention how Steve beats me every day, but I didn’t think that was relevant. Kidding. Totally Kidding.) It makes perfect sense. I had a BRUTAL workout the Friday afternoon before this started with my trainer and by Sunday morning when I woke up, I was in severe pain. MY TRAINER DID THIS TO ME!!!!! I will NEVER let him live this down. EVER. You hear that Sean? You will go to your grave feeling bad for breaking my rib during a workout. :P I suspect it was actually a combination of lifting my son, lifting the wheelchair and the workouts. But we’ll blame Sean. We’ll make him feel bad FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE. ;D So anyway, I’m about to go pick up my bag of meds and I’m giddy with the anticipation of getting better. Just writing about how bad I’m going to make Sean feel made me laugh. Which hurts my ribs. See how it all leads back to him? Yeah. I thought you would. So the moral of this entire saga is this:

  1. Never go to the ER
  2. Ambulances should be left to the unconscious
  3. Don’t bother with doctors
  4. Self diagnose and self medicate. You’re better off. ;)