Saturday, August 16, 2008

Pain at 10

On a scale from one to 10, that is. I now know what that feels like and it happened so oddly. I've had pneumonia for 4 weeks now and hurt my ribs by coughing too much. While that is annoying that isn't the ten. I was laying down and found that is the worst thing for the rib pain, so naturally I sat up - that's when it happened.

I felt a ripping jolt of pain right in the center of my right ribcage, just below my nipple. I had gotten out of bed and I fell to my knees, draped my torso over the bed, grabbed the bedsheets and screamed in agony. I simply couldn't do anything else. And not like a littl girl eaither, like a wounded bear. Darcy was looking at me with great concern and wanted to call 911 or drive me over to the hospital. I said absolutely not (when I could breath again), there is nothing they can do for rib injuries except give me pain killers and tell me to take it easy. And I wasn't going to sit in the ER for 6 hours just to hear that.

I put an ice pack on immediately but that made it much worse, so I put a heating pad on and that was better. This was Wednesday and I feel no better today, but I know these things take a long time to heal. The worst part is that my lungs are still trying to cough out the pneumonia, but a breath too deep really hurts and so does a cough of any kind. I have to get up and stand next to the bed, lean over with palms on the bed and cough that way. It's the only position that isn't too painful. If I'm at the computer I stand up and put my hands of the chair arms, that works too.

The pain relievers help some but not a lot. But the stuff that is supposed to loosen the mucus is great, especially in double doses. And I can't lay down flat on the bed, because the pain is horrendous. I have shoulders and head propped up quite a bit and have to lay on that but I have a hard time sleeping like that. Normally I sleep on my side or face down, hard to sleep face up. So last night in my sleep I tried to turn over at least half a dozen times then was awakened by the pain. Bad night.

And Darcy is in the hospital, took herself over to the ER Thursday night because she felt awful and has been there since. They did dialysis on her because she's been too sick to go over there by herself. She also fell and hurt her foot so she wants that looked at, and she needs the fluid sucked out of her belly. Anyone familiar with liver problems will know what I mean.

Maybe the universe really is out to get us.

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