Hoping for a Coma

I told you that I’ve been feeling poorly this past week.  It’s a chest cold with lots of coughing and that led to the inevitable.  Well, for me it’s inevitable.  Normal people don’t have this problem.  Any time I get a cold (that leads to bronchitis and then to pnuemonia) I cough so hard I will throw a rib out.  I’m not kidding.  It’s sounds absurd, but it’s true.  It’s also painful.

It will all begin with a stiff neck – like you slept on it wrong, but instead of loosening up as the day goes on, it gets stiffer.  And then there’ll be a twinge of a little muscle spasm.  From that point on, I can cancel all social engagements.  It ALWAYS happens over a weekend so that by the time the doctor’s office opens on Monday morning, I’m weeping over the phone and begging for an appointment.  This time it was late Sunday night.  I got into the office for an adjustment at lunch time.  My wonderful sympathetic doctor was able to put the wayward rib back in and several others that were just itching to slip free.  I’m talking down the experience because really, it’s terrifying.  There is a lot of jumping up and down on my spine and twisting my neck around like she plans to unscrew it from my shoulders.  I heard 4 or 5 loud pops and I thought that must have done the trick.

Nope.  I got no sleep last night and zero writing done.  This is not the time for a major writing derailment.  I had to lay on the bed, my right arm cradling my head just so, and my left arm wrapped around the top of my head.  And avoid breathing.  And blinking very hard.  I asked My Honey if he could arrange hovering above the mattress instead of sleeping on it.

This morning I showed up at the doctor’s doorstep (I had to give blood for lab work) and I just looked as pathetic and pitiful as I could, and the doctor agreed to see me on short notice.  This time it was my doctor’s dad.  Dr Senior.  She calls him The Hammer.  He beat me a while longer and put that damn #1 rib back in place and a few others as well.

I’m still miserable.  I look pathetic.  A sweet coworker of mine tried to give me a hug today and I nearly died on her, right there in my cubicle.  My mom (the drug pusher of the family) sent my aunt over with Vicodin.  God bless her (the God that created pain medicine).

I ABSOLUTELY MUST get some writing done today – the agent meeting is looming ever nearer and I have to have a pitch ready to go.  That blurb thing is a nightmare – I keep thinking that the Sisters are making it harder than it needs to be by over thinking it.  We have that tendency.  Maybe I should give it a try while on the Vicoden?  Who knows – that may just be the push I need.