Toad in the Hole

So apparently I got more than that black eye from my bicyclean adventures so far. I didn’t figure it out till several days later, when everything else was getting better on schedule but that odd hurt on my left side wasn’t; in fact, was getting worse. Consensus is that I cracked a rib.

Sheesh.

Oddly, I’ve never broken a bone before. Maybe I’m officially embarking upon my second childhood. Never too late, as they say. I’m being fairly emotionally resilient about it all except for one matter. It having dawned on me what had happened, and having been immobilized a few times by that deep stabbing sensation just below my left tit, I did the logical thing and called my doc—my Primary Care Practitioner, in the current jargon. Now, I think she is the bee’s knees personally and professionally and I’m lucky to have wedged myself into her practice after several tries. However, last year she moved her office into a big group in a big building on Telegraph Avenue near Ashby. Her own staff seems more or less intact, but there’s a centralized waiting room (great plants; boring magazines) and a centralized front desk.

It took me two days and guerilla tactics to get through that front desk to actually speak with her.

There used to be so-called Urgent Care Clinics that worked on a walk-in basis. Apparently they no longer exist here. I might have gone to Alta Bates’ ER but I am certain that my insurance would have disallowed this as a medical emergency and we’d be looking at a $5,000—$10,000 medical bill. I was not short of breath (no more than usual, anyway) and saw no signs of internal bleeding. In fact, there’s barely a bruise visible on the site. I was just. In. Pain. I was having trouble driving. I was having trouble getting out of soft furniture. I was having trouble reaching for the salt. I was having trouble laughing, sneezing, coughing, and opening drawers. I mean, the swollen head: eh, no reason to press on that spot anyway and the black eye was just embarrassing, not threatening. The bruised knee: eh, expect pain when I kneel, OK. The other bruised knee with the scabs and swelling and purple on both sides: eh, it’s less painful than the day before, so getting better; I can cope. The rib, though, was surprising me most unpleasantly and unpredictably and the stab made me freeze and/or drop things and it was hell on my concentration. I had to be careful to make sure my bladder was empty before going out in public. know what I mean? yeah, that surprising, and I have always been a worthy descendant of Great-Bladdered Eomer.  Advil in technical overdoses wasn’t enough to keep it tolerable.

All I could get out of the front desk on Thursday morning was an appointment this coming Tuesday. I asked then to tell her I thought I had a cracked rib, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t—when I told her I thought I had shingles, I was right, and I don’t think she takes me for a hypochondriac or a poor diagnostician. I think if she’d seen “Ron Sullivan thinks she has a cracked rib,” I’d’ve got a callback.

Friday morning I tried calling before the office opened, hoping the message service would be more savvy than the front desk. That person took down more details and asked better questions, but had to tell me she would pass the message on to, yeah, the front desk.

When I hadn’t heard anything by noonish and was really getting all despairing about it—and as you might imagine I have issues about being abandoned by the medical system including the parts I’ve already paid for financially, never mind karmically—Joe had the bright idea to call his PCP. He has a one-person office and his own front desk. So Joe called and his doc, unusually, answered, and Joe explained the problem and then I got on the phone and explained the fine points. We happen to know that Joe’s doc is at least acquainted with my doc and they refer patients to each other, so we could assume a certain wavelength similarity as well as professional competence.

He asked questions to be sure I hadn’t punctured a lung or any such thing, and then suggested the magic words: “Tell them you want a callback today.” When I did that, I got one, and my doc asked me the relevant questions, said she did indeed want to see me Tuesday, said what I needed right then was pain relief, and phoned in a Vicodin ‘scrip to the nearest drugstore. Filled, and ingested, and what a difference.

Here’s the thing: Pain does not make for clear thinking. I was incapable of formulating that magic phrase, incapable of analyzing what I was feeling other than “OW,” incapable (though I’d tried) of saying whether I was feeling the telltale crackling of a fracture moving under stress. When the pain was controlled, I could say “Oh yeah, I’m feeling that.”

What you do for a cracked rib is pretty much wait it out. Taping sure as hell didn’t work when I tried it. Decent pain control in the meantime keeps you from turning into a cramped, wincing, deformed pile of jello. Good idea. So I’ll see my doc Tuesday and have a chat about her front desk.

Joe went out today and brought back by way of consolation a library DVD of one of my favorite movies, The Triplets of Belleville. If you’ve seen it you know that bicycles figure heavily in the plot. He swears he hadn’t thought of that. (If you haven’t, waste no more time; get it!) Talk about subconscious motivations…

I took a Vicodin beforehand so I wouldn’t hurt myself laughing.