Frack, Frell, Faldercarb, and other fun words. · 5:53pm Mar 11th, 2020
That's me right now.
Though I have been recovering from my back injury, the rate of healing has been slow. Too slow, even for an older pony such as myself. I finally dragged my carcass over to a professional back-cracker who I know and has seen me in the past enough to know that when I show up in his office it's because I am in genuine pain.
He pokes, he prods. I make noises at what I think are appropriate moments. Then he turns me around and looks me in the eye, saying:
"Penalt, you didn't just pull a muscle. You've gone and dislocated a rib. What you've thought was recovery up til now has just been your body locking down the rib as best it can so you can keep on moving."
I am equine, after all. (No, seriously. Ask me sometime about it.) Our bodies prioritize movement.
Back-cracker says he can fix me, but it will take time. All he can do that day, is to free the rib from where it's been locked down so that he can start pushing it back into place at another visit. The catch? Oh yes, there is a catch.
The catch is that my pain levels are going to go up. Way up, before they go back down. In my best John Wayne I tell him to go for it, and go for it he does. It takes not one, not two, but three attempts for him to break the rib free. So now I have a rib that's partially unanchored, and I'll tell you that work last night was sheer H-E-double hockey sticks.
I see him again tomorrow, where he will begin to start shifting the rib back into its proper position, and I have a third appointment scheduled 48hrs after that one. Once the rib is back in plac,e I will be booking some massage therapy to rebuild and reshape the muscles back into their proper configurations.
Thankfully, I'm Canadian and my injury happened at work, so I am fully covered and my out of pocket expenses add up to a big, to quote Jayne Cobb, "Nuthin' into nuthin, carry the nuthin'..." Well, you get the idea.
So, I'm back to having to stop writing, except in short bursts. Which is smegging annoying. Especially as I was closing in on writing a big reveal in Brightly. Which means the story "Dark Chocolate" is also on hold, as is the next chapter of Twilight Learned. GRRRRRRR.
It is a step back, but it is also the downward flex of a springboard as it prepares to launch me forward. I leave you with the words of one of my favorite poets, Sir Rudyard Kipling. He of The Jungle Book, Rikki Tikki Tavi, and many more wondrous tales....
From "The Hymn to Breaking Strain"
We only of Creation
(Oh, luckier bridge and rail!)
Abide the twin-damnation -
To fail and know we fail.Yet we - by which sole token
We know we once were Gods -Take shame in being broken
However great the odds -
The Burden or the Odds.
Wow, a dislocated rib?
Did you stop a runaway cart with your pectoral muscles or something? Gonna call you Captain Canada from now on (nah, kidding). Glad you're still getting out of this without the need for more invasive medical treatment, but pain is still pain and sucks no matter the form. Still, it sounds like it could've been a lot worse. Wayward ribs tend to poke into important bits.
Yeah, echoing Mouse here. What the zog did you do to dislocate a rib? Those things are made to take a pounding!
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I spent the better part of two hours manually overpowering a 1200 pound powered pallet jack and it's 1500 pound loads by dragging it around corners harder than it normally could around hairpin corners in order to get temperature controlled loads back into a cooler before they warmed up too much.
It was a combination of multiple truck loads showing up at once, instead of spaced out. My being the power jack qualified person on at the time, and use of poor technique compounded by attempting to substitute brute force for turning skill at speed.
Having dislocated my left kneecap I understand just how painful dislocations can be, but having a rib dislocate... I didn't even know that was possible, Still, I hope that you feel better soon, or at least hurt less.
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So what did you mean by being equine? (You did say to ask lol)
Do you identify as an equine or.......?
Oof. Glad you’re covered. Hope you feel better soon!
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Ah. Yeah, that'll do it.
Oof...Rib issues are quite not fun. Broke my own several years ago. Take that rest and smile that your living in Canada where things are covered! Taking care of yourself and healing properly is quite important (but you already know that).
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I do identify as equine. My actual last name is a term for a well known group of horse warriors. I was born in the year of the Fire Horse. Genetically speaking I am descended from the survivors of ancient Rome who fled northeast and intermarried with protoMongolian tribesmen of that area.
Appropriately my eldest child was also born in a Year of the Horse
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Me, as Penny Dreadful
Me, as Penny Mageborn. Horse, heretic, and healer
Me, as Tempest, Ice Unicorn Mage
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