Two weeks ago on Monday, I observed that the mattress I'd rotated three days before had not been put back in place correctly enough. It stood too far away from the headboard and I was in danger of losing my small blankets down the crack. (This whole situation happens to me fairly frequently, given that I rotate the mattress once a week.)
So I put my hands on the side of the mattress, braced my feet, and prepared to give it a good shove to get it up closer to the headboard. About this time Apricot notices I'm about to move the mattress and jumps up on it, coming over to me to get headbumped and kissed beforehand. (A far cry from his feral origins where he'd never get close if I was moving the mattress; now he likes to be on it while I move it!)
Okay, Apricot head-bumps and kisses over, I reset everything and shoved as hard as I could. My elbows were bent at almost a 90 degree angle and I was pushing with my entire strength down my arms and against the mattress.
I have done this many times without a single problem.
This time, my right arm buckled, the elbow swinging inward. At the same time, like a game of tug of war, I drove my entire body weight onto the point of that elbow. Which, due to an apparently genetic quirk making my elbow level with my ribs, means my elbow stabbed into my ribs.
This hurt.
Since my lungs are behind my ribs, this also drove the air out of just one lung, not the other. I've had the breath knocked out of me before but never just on one side. This feels very strange and even more "wrong" than both sides, oddly enough.
So, being in a great deal of pain and not being able to breath on one side, I naturally collapsed against the bed. I felt rather positive that if I continued the downward trend I wouldn't be able to get off the floor for a while so I just sort of pinned myself against the mattresses, holding on with my arms too, while I struggled to get things sorted.
Remember Apricot? He's still there.
My head is now level with his. He came closer to me and gave me an exploratory, concerned sniff. "Are you okay? You're acting all kinds of weird."
I reassured him I was okay, just in pain again. He left, looking back over his shoulder as if to say, "well, you don't look okay but I'll take your word for it."
The reputable medical websites all say bruised ribs take 3-4 weeks to heal. I think they're right.
Also, did you know you can sprain a rib? I thought sprains only happened to joints. You can also crack or break a rib, but I have a feeling I would have been in a lot more pain and not been able to "do stuff" while it heals.
I didn't go to a doctor. I really can't afford it, plus, the only thing they can do is xray you, tell you if you bruised, sprained, or cracked the rib(s), and give you sympathy. You're not supposed to bind even broken ribs now, as it causes shallow breathing which can give you pneumonia. You're supposed to take anti-inflammatory drugs to make the pain less so you also breathe less shallowly, but after two days of taking an OTC anti-inflammatory during work, I realized that, yeah, I was getting reaction headaches.
So no pain medication for me. I actually did try to see the doctor at the end of the first week to try to get some prescription anti-inflammatory drugs that might not have the same reaction headache issue, (we're talking migraines here, not something I'd rather have than my ribs hurting) but they didn't have anything appointments open.
It's only been in the last few days that I can lift Colby without having to hastily put him back down again because it hurts too bad; I still can't lift Thimble. Part of it is that Colby weighs less (by about a pound) but part of it is also that Colby relaxes into my shoulder and conforms to my body, making his weight more evenly distributed, while Thimble would stand on my hands and shoulder if I'd let him.
They haven't really understood why I'm not doing as much picking up cats as usual, nor why I'm doing less getting down on the floor with them. (Try it. Notice how much core muscle work is required to get back up? Yeah, those muscles. The ones right across the ribs I bruised. Ow.)
When I told my parents about this whole incident, I expressed the exasperation I had with it. I mean, I knew you could bruise/crack your ribs by coughing, but I didn't know you could bruise/crack your own ribs with your own elbow! It sounds ridiculous!
Daddy told me he'd done it. Twice. Both times when he was driving his truck and having to do something to it. But (lucky me for being a wimpy girl) with his extra guy upper-body-strength, he didn't just bruise his ribs. He cracked them. And then still had to drive home. OW.
It also occurred to me about a week after doing it that I was very lucky my right arm had buckled. Remember the trouble I had making my lung start breathing again? I don't think a sharp, sudden blow directly over my heart (left side) would have been good for me!
And a coworker (who had also bruised his ribs when he was 18 and playing football for high school) showed me a better arm placement so the next time this happens, if my arm does buckle, the elbow will go wide and miss my body and all I'll do is end up with my chest against the mattress. Sounds much better.
Now if only I can remember to do that ....
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