So you think you had a bad weekend
I thought breaking a rib was bad, but terrencechan got stung by a Portuguese man o' war.
I continue to feel pretty damned lucky about all of this. Things could have been much, much worse -- I don't even want to think about if I'd broken my jaw or otherwise hit my head vs. taking the impact on my rib cage.
They discharged me with a script for Percocet. "Have you ever taken this drug before?" "No, but I hear good things about it." I didn't end up taking any Saturday night because we had wine with dinner[1], but although I was still in a fair bit of discomfort I decided to try sleeping without the aid of pain meds and it was surprisingly ok. I had a small pillow under my left side (which caused me to have a bit of a sore neck on my right side the next morning, heh) and that worked well, and sleeping on my right side was fine too (obviously I didn't try sleeping on my left side).
I did take one last night maybe an hour or two before going to sleep at home, and as with my previous experiences with Vicodin/hydrocodone I was pretty unimpressed. I'm not sure I really noticed much of an effect at all (but it's possible I slept more soundly than I would have without it). Apparently Percocet is oxycodone + acetaminophen[2] (and I have never noticed the latter providing me with much relief for e.g. headaches) and oxycodone is chemically very closely related to hydrocodone. Maybe I'm resistant to the family? But the same page says oxycodone is also similar to codeine, which I have definitely enjoyed pharmaceutically before :-)
I think the Ace bandages for stability/support are helping too, although I can't tell if that's just a placebo effect. It does keep my chest warm, and makes it feel like I'm getting a continuous hug :-) 48 hours on, it does feel noticeably better, even if some activities still cause transient acute pain. Here is a partial list:
- taking deep breaths (but they warned me that if you constantly take shallow breaths there's a chance of not completely opening your airways and subsequently developing pneumonia, so I'm supposed to suck it up and make sure to breathe normally, and do some deep breaths at least several times a day)
- laughing
- coughing
- sneezing (hasn't happened yet, but I'm just going to assume)
- UPDATE: I just sneezed. I've been fairly successfully suppressing them by applying pressure to my upper lip but this one snuck up on me by surprise (but I had at least enough warning to prepare for it). I would still prefer it hadn't happened, but like everything else associated with this, it could have been a lot worse.
- burping (if I have to squeeze it out)
- hiccuping
- shivering
- talking in long sentences
- stretching, sitting/standing up straight
- sitting up or rolling in bed
- raising the roof
- walking too quickly (the footfall impact gets transmitted all the way up the body)
- sudden or strenuous movements having to do with my left arm
- a surprising array of activities that involve the muscles of the chest wall (including, they strongly advised me to pick up some stool softener, which I did)
[1] it was funny that my prioritized thoughts while sitting around in the ER were (1) do I have a punctured lung (2) are we going to have to miss our dinner reservation?
[2] Percodan is oxycodone + aspirin. These names always make me think of Krusty's Percodan addiction. "If you ask me, that stuff rots your brain."
I continue to feel pretty damned lucky about all of this. Things could have been much, much worse -- I don't even want to think about if I'd broken my jaw or otherwise hit my head vs. taking the impact on my rib cage.
They discharged me with a script for Percocet. "Have you ever taken this drug before?" "No, but I hear good things about it." I didn't end up taking any Saturday night because we had wine with dinner[1], but although I was still in a fair bit of discomfort I decided to try sleeping without the aid of pain meds and it was surprisingly ok. I had a small pillow under my left side (which caused me to have a bit of a sore neck on my right side the next morning, heh) and that worked well, and sleeping on my right side was fine too (obviously I didn't try sleeping on my left side).
I did take one last night maybe an hour or two before going to sleep at home, and as with my previous experiences with Vicodin/hydrocodone I was pretty unimpressed. I'm not sure I really noticed much of an effect at all (but it's possible I slept more soundly than I would have without it). Apparently Percocet is oxycodone + acetaminophen[2] (and I have never noticed the latter providing me with much relief for e.g. headaches) and oxycodone is chemically very closely related to hydrocodone. Maybe I'm resistant to the family? But the same page says oxycodone is also similar to codeine, which I have definitely enjoyed pharmaceutically before :-)
I think the Ace bandages for stability/support are helping too, although I can't tell if that's just a placebo effect. It does keep my chest warm, and makes it feel like I'm getting a continuous hug :-) 48 hours on, it does feel noticeably better, even if some activities still cause transient acute pain. Here is a partial list:
- taking deep breaths (but they warned me that if you constantly take shallow breaths there's a chance of not completely opening your airways and subsequently developing pneumonia, so I'm supposed to suck it up and make sure to breathe normally, and do some deep breaths at least several times a day)
- laughing
- coughing
- sneezing (hasn't happened yet, but I'm just going to assume)
- UPDATE: I just sneezed. I've been fairly successfully suppressing them by applying pressure to my upper lip but this one snuck up on me by surprise (but I had at least enough warning to prepare for it). I would still prefer it hadn't happened, but like everything else associated with this, it could have been a lot worse.
- burping (if I have to squeeze it out)
- hiccuping
- shivering
- talking in long sentences
- stretching, sitting/standing up straight
- sitting up or rolling in bed
- raising the roof
- walking too quickly (the footfall impact gets transmitted all the way up the body)
- sudden or strenuous movements having to do with my left arm
- a surprising array of activities that involve the muscles of the chest wall (including, they strongly advised me to pick up some stool softener, which I did)
[1] it was funny that my prioritized thoughts while sitting around in the ER were (1) do I have a punctured lung (2) are we going to have to miss our dinner reservation?
[2] Percodan is oxycodone + aspirin. These names always make me think of Krusty's Percodan addiction. "If you ask me, that stuff rots your brain."