It's As If I've Been Punched

I don't have the flu anymore, but I have had a lingering cough. A week or so ago, in the midst of the coughing, I pulled something like a muscle. Or I broke something like a rib. Whatever happened, it hurts.

It hurts when my cat Tiger puts a paw on my sternum. It hurts when I clear my throat. It hurts if I cough even slightly. It hurts if I hiccup or get in and out of a car or pick up something heavier than a cup of coffee. And God help me, it hurts if I sneeze.

Like anybody who doesn't like going to doctors, I turned to the Internet for a diagnosis, and I found all sorts of people asking for help from cough injuries. Apparently it's common to hurt yourself while coughing, which makes me wonder if we're all just doing it wrong. Maybe there is correct posture and incorrect posture for it, and those of us in the wrong position break our bones or pull a tendon.

The consensus online is that you're screwed. Once you break a rib or pull a muscle or damage the connective tissue in that general area, all you can do is wait it out, and it could take weeks to heal. You have to hold a pillow when you feel a cough of sneeze coming on, and you have to take Advil for occasions when you, say, play a French horn.

I called an actual doctor and talked to the nurse about the whole thing, and she said exactly what I read on the Internet, including the fact the doctor couldn't help me, so there's no point in coming in for a visit. So, here I sit, clutching a pillow and popping Advil and enjoying that rare deep breath that doesn't come with pain.

Happy Birthday...

to me! Update: Since you have asked, I only got one actual packaged gift, a beautiful hand-made bracelet from a friend, but both girls were home for the weekend, and we had dinner at the lake and a relaxing weekend. Thanks to all of you for your lovely wishes!

My Sitemeter is All Bloated and Not Quite Itself

I'm tempted to let it sit on the couch with its feet curled up under a blanket, a hot cup of coffee in hand, a block of cherry almond bark Chocolove within reach, and An Affair to Remember spinning in the DVD player. I'm one of those obsessive bloggers, the kind who checks her sitemeter as often as possible throughout the day, the kind who gauges the quality of her writing by the number of readers who regularly stop by. I've become less interested in the overall number of hits and more interested in the number of repeat hits. The return visitors are the ones I long for. When my sitemeter reads forty at the end of the day, and the majority of those hits are webpals who have conversed, I'm happy. Forty may seem low to many of you, but I've only been at this since August. To me, forty is a jackpot. A few days ago, I sat down at my laptop and discovered a number somewhere in the eighties. Eighties! Yippee! Yeeha ! Hoo-rah ! I've been discovered by the webworld , o...

Ish People

Tell an Ish person to show up around 9 a.m., and you'll see them somewhere around 9 a.m. Tell them to show up at 9ish, and you'll see them anywhere from 9:05 to 9:20. You have given them license to dilly dally, and who wouldn't take advantage of that? The other night at the big shindig dinner party, one of the drummers said the rehearsal the next morning would begin at 9ish. "I am an ish person," he says. Immediately the clanker goes off in my head--oh, good, I thought. I can deliver my daughter a little late. No Ish person is early, so if you say 9ish, that does not mean give or take 5, 10, 15 minutes. It's exclusively a taking phrase. Take an extra 10 minutes to drink your cup of coffee. We won't mind. We're Ish people. Sunday's rehearsal started at 2:00. Because it was conducted by the same people who conducted the Saturday rehearsal, my understanding was 2-ISH. My daughter is worse than I am about taking liberties with Ish time frames, so she d...

Scout Moves

Search This Blog