So following my last update and a spot of hope that my wellbeing would improve I happened upon last Monday.
Which brought with it the feeling that I was going to fall apart. From the inside.
I don’t like accepting defeat to my bodily woes but I had to give in. My back felt swollen (right against the spine was worrying me), my chest felt full of fire and my internal bits felt all jumbled up. A day for doing nothing, basically.
And the next three days saw mild improvement but with the experience that far too much was moving around far too much.
So Thursday broke my resolve and I booked to see the doctor. Well, I phoned him first to discuss whether my self diagnosis was about correct regarding healing, they being ribs and constantly on the move etc, before I explained that the pain wasn’t entirely rib based and things were moving around, it seemed. So an appointment was arranged for the same afternoon.
At which I lay on his couch after a bit of poking and prodding for a bit more poking, prodding and tapping before I spent about 20 minutes trying to get myself upright without splitting in two (getting upright from prone is the hardest thing each day still).
Whereupon he poked and prodded and got me to bend and stretch before booking me in for an ultra-sound abdominal scan because he’s intrigued as to whether I might have shifted some internal organs around. Most concerningly my liver, apparently. He assured me that, while confident I had two ribs in tatters, they’d be fine given 8 weeks to fix themselves. So some hope, then!
So next Thursday is the next opportunity for an update after they’ve had a look inside me, as it were.
As is usual I feel lots better at the moment, having been unable to do anything much for a while, so I’m hopeful all will be ok and I’ll just have to be patient until my ribs are knitted enough to gently jog and pedal a bit more enthusiastically (when I say a bit more…I am sneaking out on the mountainbike for a gentle, upright, not getting out of breath at all since I can’t pedal around the lanes…I can’t simply do nothing, I’ll go insane!)
So, no running, no exercise, no Juneathon…what a rubbish summer!
Good luck with the scanning, healing etc. Re getting out of bed, have you tried swinging your legs (I appreciate that you might not feel like swinging anything anywhere) off the bed together first? If you do that, it sort of pulls you upright into a sitting position (you can also use this to get people out of bed, but use that knowledge cautiously).
Oh I know all about having fractured ribs, soooo painful I did mine whilst competing for an international gymnastics meet, and I remember not even being able to breathe it hurt so much, and to make matters worse I had to continue to compete, my coach made me, but at the time we didn’t know I had frctured ribs… I also remember being annoyed that I couldn’t even do sit ups, but thankfully they didn’t take that long to heal! So I hope yours heal quickly too!