Seriously?  All I’m about to do is whine here. I suggest you move along. I’d keep all this to myself, but I need a place to vent.

It’s 3:52, and I’m awake. Totally braindead, but awake. The good drugs, fortunately, knocked me out. Unfortunately, they’re not as good as the really good drugs (which make me super nauseus), since I’m awake 6 hours after taking it. Bleh.

The pain comes and goes. The actual point of breakage – I can tell where it is because of the extreme external bruise – fortunately didn’t hurt at all yesterday. Right now it’s become a dull, constant ache.  The real pain is on the side and front, I’m assuming because the rib is floating around and pulling the cartilage from the surrounding ribs.  Whatever it is, it hurts like a nothing I’ve ever felt (and with RA, I’ve felt some pretty awful pain).

Fortunately, if I sit still enough and prop up my right arm a little, it doesn’t hurt quite as bad.  Unfortunately, that gets really boring really fast, and doesn’t solve my need to breathe in and out every few seconds.

Here, enjoy this little picture that I stole from here, and enhanced. Pink shows the broken one. The red splotch is approximately where it’s fractured. It’s a little rough, but my photoshop skills aren’t at their peak at 4:15 am (which it now is).

Apparently the 8th rib is called a “false rib”. I can’t quite grasp why, but that article I linked to above has a brief explanation. It’s somewhere between a true rib and a floating rib. Whatever. It hurts.

Back to whining.

Sleeping wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, except that I have to sleep propped up on the couch, since I can’t completely lay down.

And have I mentioned the bruise on my face yet? Because it’s starting to look really lovely.

And I need to get up and go to the bathroom, except the good meds have left me feeling a little dizzy, so I’m a little leery to stand up right now in case I fall over or pass out again. Which, if I recall, is what caused this little problem in the first place. And S is in the bedroom, on the other side of the house, sleeping, and I don’t want to wake him to come and help me. Guess I don’t need to get up that bad.

Maybe I’ll use my quality nighttime hours to catch up on some of the blog reading I’ve been neglecting.