Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Emergency Brace

Day Two of The Brace. What brace, you ask? Well, the brace the emergency room doctor gave me when I went in Monday night after what felt like my cracked rib and punctured my lungs but was actually a sprained/strained oblique muscle. Muscle pains I can deal with which makes me all the more glad for it not being in the punctured lung realm. 

I felt foolish for going to the emergency room but I couldn't go on any longer without knowing how to get relief. You see, I went for a bike ride - because I felt totally fine - and when I got back I coughed a little which caused the end-all pain for me. 

It hurt to move, bend, use my arm and breathe. Breathing is not supposed to hurt. So in addition to the elastic brace, they gave me some muscle relaxers and authorized me to use the Vicodin from my surgery. I've barely taken anything since I don't want to be loopy. 

In the meantime, I've become quite aware at how much I use my "core" muscles, including my oblique muscle in everyday life. It makes me want to do Pilates or something when I'm done healing. Either that or eat more donettes*.

*donettes are those little powdered donuts that you get from Hostess.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the product placement! I'm surprised an add for donettes didn't pop up on your blog. I foresaw the "hurt when you breath thing" like I said it will go away within 10 days or so. (If it was a punctured lung you never would have been able to ride your bike in the first place.)

Now because you chose to ignore my non-medically trained diagnosis you've got to walk around like Robocop with a brace on! (Though I have a feeling the doctor just gave you the brace as a placebo so you wouldn't feel as if you wasted your time coming in.) But at least one good thing came out of this painful episode, I now know(because remember it's all about me) I had a pulled oblique muscle 10 months ago.

ckh said...

I love placebos! It's not the brace that makes me walk like Robocop, it's my metal armor that does that.

Fortunately, the pain has subsided quite a bit. I'm not going to do a lot of strenuous exercise, but will probably end up doing too much too soon anyway. At least I know I can't break anything.

As for ignoring your advice, I ignore everyone's advice unless it happens to mirror my own, so don't take it personally. It's always welcome. :)

Anonymous said...

Finally, you commented on one of my comments! :) I was thisclose to posting a picture of my feet in pink socks to get a comment.

ckh said...

I dare you! But you have to knit the socks before taking a picture. Get back to me when you're done!

Anonymous said...

No, I've come to realize there can only be one true pink-footed one (besides I can't knit) and from what I hear you don't want to make the HOK* angry.

*with apologies to David Hassellhoff.