I went to the doctor yesterday because I've been having a lot of pain in my boob and side and up into my armpit and when we called the nurse, she was concerned. Which made me concerned. And I had to wait almost two weeks until payday so I could afford to go, so there was a lot of not sleeping and barely skirting panic attacks--and making Contingency Plans in my head and my journal.
So I get there, and he is almost immediately sure that it's nothing deadly. He said if it was, I'd have no good days--it would all be bad days. And then he started poking my bones.
Apparently, there's a thing where all your connective tissues all over your ribs get inflamed. And it makes a lot of pain that sort of leeches into your soft tissues and feels like soft tissue pain and can be alarming and awful, but isn't deadly, and that's what I have. It can be caused by injuries--and I did crack at least one rib falling in the tub in our old apartment, maybe a year and a half or two years ago. It can also be caused by coughing which I do quite a lot because I'm allergic to everything in the last two climates I've lived in. And sometimes it just happens. My mom has a similar condition, so maybe I've got the same susceptibilities as she has.
It sucks. Like, a lot. They gave me steroids to take, which means I'm taking way too many gross-tasting pills every day for the rest of this week, plus Aleve for the sweeping and pain, and an allergy pill to help my immune system calm down and ease the coughing. He wants me to start walking again now that it's warm (which we were going to do anyway), and fast-walking to get my arms moving and my ribs flexing. He wants me to do what's basically the same arm exercises they give to physical therapy people to strengthen up my torso.
It's dumb. But at least, as far as we can tell, it's not deadly, and I'm super grateful for that!
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