can i break just one rib?

Though based on actual events, some of this has been . . . enhanced . . . for dramatic effect.

On Friday, I took Anne to the Moonlight roller rink for her birthday. It was totally awesome, and we had exactly the kind of fun we remembered having when we went to roller rinks as kids, which was kind of the plan when we made it.

While we were there, I learned something: Newton’s first law of motion isn’t just something you have to study in school; I proved the goddamn thing.

Here’s how it (and I) went down: I was rolling along on those old retro 4-wheeled skates I was the fucking master of when I was in middle school. Nearing the edge of the rink at the blistering speed of about three miles per hour, I bumped one skate with the other, transforming my feet from a means of travel into a perfect pivot point. I flew straight to the floor, stupidly throwing my right hand out to break my fall.

My hand hit the floor, and stuck. It didn’t skip, it didn’t slide, it just stuck there, waiting for the rest of me to crash onto it. It was not disappointed.

Guess what happens when you take 150 pounds of me, accelerate it to three or so miles per hour, then drop it from about six feet onto four inches of balled-up fist? It turns out you focus a whole lot of rib-breaking power onto a small surface.

It didn’t really hurt when I fell; it was silly and a little embarrassing more than anything else, but when I fell a second time in almost the exact same way two hours later, I knew I was in for an ouchy evening.

Friday night was fine, but it ached a whole lot on Saturday. By Saturday night, it was a constant ache, occasionally disturbed by stabbing flashes of real pain. Sunday was bad, Monday was bad, yesterday was better in the morning, and by last night, I thought that maybe I was on my way to recovery.

I woke up this morning – after waking up six or seven times overnight – in absolutely unbearable pain. Since this didn’t continue the “I think it’s getting better” streak that started yesterday, I made an appointment to see my doctor.

“Does this hurt?” He said, pressing against my side.

“Nope.”

“How about this?” He pressed in a different area.

“Nope.”

We repeated this as he worked his way up my right side.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s try this.”

He put one hand on my back, another on my sternum, and pressed.

“Does this -“

I made a sound like a giraffe getting run over by a train while they’re both hit by a meteor.

“Yeah, we’re gonna go ahead and x-ray that.”

I went down to the lab and had a series of films taken. I successfully resisted the compulsion to say “HULK SMASH!!” after each shot. When I took them back up to my doctor’s office, he showed me where he could see a break, and where he thought my ribs were cleverly concealing at least one other break.

“So . . . do we have to put me down?” I said.

“No, but you’re going to be unable to do much of anything for at least another week.”

“Can I get a note to that effect to give my wife, and would you leave some space for me to write other . . . doctor’s orders?”

“You’re sure you only took Motrin this morning?”

I answered in the affirmative.

“If I’m broken here,” I said, pointing to my side, “then why does it hurt so much here?” I pointed to my sternum.

“Because you probably tore a bunch of cartilage when you fell. I can’t say for sure because cartilage doesn’t show up on x-ray, but I think it’s a safe assumption.” He wrote me some prescriptions for pain medication and advised me to breathe as deeply as I could and force some coughs a few times a day to minimize the risk of pneumonia.

“I’ll see you again in ten days to make sure you’re fine before you go to Seattle,” he said.

(I’d told him that the most important thing in my near future, even more important than healing this massive pain, was ensuring that I didn’t miss PAX.)

So now I’m home following his orders, taking pain medication that I don’t want to take (if I start thinking Squidbillies is awesome than I’ll go back to dealing with the pain) eating prunes and playing the waiting game until UPS delivers Hungry Hungry Hippos.

. . . stupid classical physics.

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73 thoughts on “can i break just one rib?”

  1. First of all, the stoic in me has to laugh. Secondly, I didn’t know you were that tall, I guessed you at about 5’9″. That’s a pretty dated guesstimate, I recall you appearing a little taller than Patrick Stewart during TNG.
    Anyway, I had a similar accident on roller blades a few years ago near Fresno. My kids were like “Whoa Dad, did that hurt?” I just laid there looking at them, “Duh!”

  2. I broke a rib in High School, by tripping over a ladder that someone slid in front of a door on a dark stage. It happened much the same way. While it hurt at the time, I didn’t really wrench it broken or feel it till a couple days later.
    That being said, skating is SRS BZNS. Our newish roller derby team already had a broken leg, a broken ankle, several sprains, and one girl even broke her ankle outside the rink while taking a smoke break.

  3. Wil this is one case where I can say that I honestly “feel your pain.” because in 2001 I was in a car crash that resulted in me having 3 broken ribs.
    That was the worst pain I can ever remember being in. Normally if you are sick or injured there is that one position that you can work your body into to get relief. However with a broken or cracked rib it is about a week of “joy” as every breath is a movement of the wounded part.
    Unfortunately, time is the only thing that will make it any better.
    Here’s to you feeling better soon.

  4. One would think you’d have a better grasp of Newton’s laws after that whole business with the tractor beam in “The Naked Now”. 😉 Seriously though, ouch. Hope you feel better soon.
    Also: “I went down to the lab and had a series of films taken. I successfully resisted the compulsion to say “HULK SMASH!!” after each shot.”
    I LOL’d. Well played, sir.

  6. Oh damn wil!
    I should learn from this, but I won’t. We just moved again and the new town we are in has one of those cool old fashioned roller rinks just like the ones we went to when we were kids and my kids are dying for me to take them there, and while I know I should leave the skates off and just help them out.. I know that is just not going to happen. I am way to sentimental to not lace up the old skates and try not to break my neck. It’s crazy how much different these things become when you get older. My god and we are NOT THAT OLD!
    sheesh.
    *lots of healing mojo to you my friend*
    Neph

  7. “F*ck the cup–pour it in my hand for a dime! … You got change for a hundred?”
    There is nothing not funny about that movie. Sad to think about Isaac Hayes now, though.

  8. Wil,
    Entries with lines like these need to be immortalized more immortally (an entire print volume dedicated to the wacky?), or at least filed or tracked somehow. See, my leaky neurons don’t do that well enough on their own. I remember the Flatiron building talking-in-links thing, but aside from that I just have the vague impression that you’ve tossed us lots of other great lines–memorably great, for those whose brains do that sort of thing.
    Heal up quick and be well!

  10. Wow, you still have a roller rink? Ours are long gone. And, yeah, I ruled the hardwood. Memories…
    That said, this next week might be fun if Wil does some posts hopped up on pain meds. Shades of Pauly!
    Tao of Wheaton?

  11. I’m not too worried about suddenly getting a reality show.
    Posted by: Wil
    [sarcasm]But-but-but you TOO could have your 30 minutes of fame and be rich… and divorced! [/sarcasm]

  12. I shattered my right collarbone when I was 14. Going downhill, I tried to slow down my bike and stopped it instead. Physics ensued. I have a very clear memory of thinking, while in the air, “This is not good. I’m going to hurt myself. I hope my bike’s OK. I hope I don’t hit my head.” Then not much for most of a minute.
    Shock is an interesting thing. When Dad was driving me to the hospital, he was running the heat at full blast because I was shivering — and not because it was February, because we were in Texas and it was very comfortable.
    We left my sister at home with a message for Mom, who was out shopping. Unfortunately, the only part of the message that was delivered was “Andrew’s gone to the ER,” and the part about “he’s broken his shoulder, but otherwise he’s fine” didn’t get relayed. Oops.
    Mom got to see my X-rays later. She said they made her turn green. Apparently I really messed up my shoulder, but good. Took it six weeks just to knit properly, and I don’t think it fully healed until the summer was mostly over.
    It’s all better now, though.

  15. Ah, been there. I kept trying to stretch it out, thinking it was a sore muscle. Doh. It took a month to heal, because I’m an idiot. 🙂

  17. oohh Wil. “Ouch” doesn’t seem to cover it. Looks like you need my mantra…”at least I got a good story out of it.”

  18. @Kes BWAHAHA, nope it wasn’t that play. It is a fantastic play called “Wrong Turn at Lungfish” by Garry Marshall and Lowell Ganz.
    Screw it, I will copy and post my blog about it here. It is lengthy, so I do apologize in advance, but the read is well worth it.
    “What a FUCKING Night!!!”
    Well so much for having a great dress rehearsal and a great opening night. We had complete havoc tonight. Anything aweful that could go wrong did!!!
    First, while I am helping with a costume change backstage, I get an elbow in the eye which caused me to lose a contact. So, I have to go on stage to do my next scene blind as a bat and with an eye that is
    swelling up. The stage manager found my contact but it was already drying up and making that aweful crackling noise. So, I had to send one of the other backstage people downstairs to find my contact solution and quickly try to repair my contact before it cracked
    and became useless. I saved it just in time for my next scene. From now on, I am wearing my glasses.
    So all is well and I break down in tears during intermission. So Act 2 rolls around. Its the start of the fight scene. Randy does his punch to Eric. Eric collapses on the bed as usual and throws himself back and as his head is flying back, CRACK, it connects with the metal corner of the night table and splits open his head. They are still fighting not realizing he is bleeding all over the place. Its time for my entry, and as I am saying the lines, “What is going on in here?” then walking over to help Eric in bed and saying “Why is he hanging out of bed?” I notice a pool of blood on the floor. I try and get him into bed without the
    audience seeing the blood on the floor while still doing my lines and saying OH FUCK OH FUCK over and over again in my head. I put him in bed while saying all the rest of my lines and pull my hand out from under his head to see my hand and arm covered in blood and look down and its all over my uniform. I quickly do the rest of my lines and exit to quickly inform the stage manager and our director in the booth that there has been a serious accident on
    stage. The rest of the actors did not know until they crossed over to stage right to see all the blood on the floor.
    So there is still 15 minutes left in this final scene with a guy laying
    in bed with his head bleeding like a son of a bitch. Thank God, he is a dr and my dr and two other drs were in the audience
    tonight. So as they are finishing off the show, I am busy backstage co-ordinating the pressure bandage and ice and making sure everything he will need to get the bleeding under control is waiting
    for him when he makes his exit. As we go dark before our bows, I quickly rush on stage to help him off the bed making sure the pillow is still applying pressure and to let him know the ice is waiting.
    We get downstairs and all the drs come down and I am helping them get the bleeding and everything under control. We deal with him everything is calm and Randy breaks down because he feels that the
    punch is what caused the injury and he has been a mess for the rest of the night. Everyone is finally calm and we think okay its over nothing else can possibly go wrong. WRONG AGAIN!!!!
    The stage manager is going upstairs to put some things up on the stairs and she falls down the stairs. We all get over that and think okay we all better leave before something else happens.
    We are all out of the hall getting into our cars and thinking okay nothing else bad can happen. WRONG YET AGAIN!!!! As I am closing the car door, my foot gets caught between the door frame and the dash of the car and I slam my foot when I shut the door.
    Randy and I just started to laugh and he said thats it, we are walking home otherwise we wont make it home alive. But we drove and we are alive and now we are going to try and put this night behind us
    forever!!!!

  19. Oh, my goodness. When you asked if you had to be put down, I nearly fell out of my chair.
    I’ve, too, have broken a few ribs, the result of roughhousing with my older brothers, and it’s no fun, to say the least. Although my brothers did get punished by my parents quite well, so that made me feel a little better.

  20. I am at work, just to let you know.
    This had me laughing so hard I had a fist over my mouth to stifle myself. Which didn’t work as well as I hoped because then I just chortled through my nose instead.
    Sorry to hear about the rib, but you succeeded in totally righting the wrongs in my day by making me laugh. Wil, you are AwesomeSauce.

  22. Oh, man, Wil, sorry to hear about your pain. I have to say, though, that it inspires some of the best descriptions EVAR!

  23. Reading all these comments makes me want to stay in bed with a thick duvet, and an advisor from ‘Elf and Safety!!
    I cracked my sternum a week before my rock band (now vanished into the obscurity we probably deserved) were booked to do our demo.
    Of which I was the lead singer – people talk about suffering for your art, but I seldom think they mean it quite so literally.
    Get well soon!!

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