From Bad to Worse

It was bad enough when I was coughing, sneezing, sniffling, and shaking with chills and a fever.  But now I can add a busted rib to the list as well.

I've been having this horrible unproductive cough.  At times, it becomes a "'Honey, take the baby'-knock me to my knees-'Oh my God, I can't breath!'"  I cough and cough and cough and wheeze and call out for water or a cough drop, or beg my husband to pull my lungs out so that I can scrape all the gunk out of them.  I had one of those episodes yesterday shortly before my husband got home from work.  But at the end, I had this horrible sharp pain in my right ribs.  It hurt when I coughed, but it also hurt to simply take a deep breath.  It hurts with just the slightest movement as well.

I didn't think it was possible, but we confirmed with my doctor sister-in-law (my husband's sister--not my brother's pregnant wife) that you can indeed bust a rib from coughing too hard.  I don't know if it's broken or strained or tweaked or out of alignment or what--I just know it hurts.  And I doubt--and my doctor sister-in-law confirmed--that Urgent Care probably wouldn't really be able to do anything for me, other than give me pain meds, which I have left-over from when Ella was born. 

So now on top of everything else, I'm dealing with this horrible pain in my side.  Things just seem to be going from bad to worse.  I guess that's not entirely true--I *think* (and hope and pray) that the gunk is starting to loosen up.  I'm starting to be able to cough up little bits of gunk--but I have to mentally psych myself up to get through the pain in my ribs.  I realize it's totally gross to talk about the gunk, but really--it's such a glorious feeling to get it out of the system!  It's just that the timing couldn't be worse.  I want to cough it all up and be done with it, but this busted rib is keeping me from reaching my full coughing potential.

Yesterday's blessing was my husband's care for me and Ella.  But before I tell you how wonderful he is, let me first tell you how un-wonderful he was the previous night.  Ella and I both had a tough night on Thursday night.  Neither of us were really sleeping for more than an hour at a time because we're both battling this cold (I swear that we sometimes cough in unison).  My husband has been sleeping on the couch (who can blame him?), and when I crumpled to the floor of the living room in tears, with Ella whimpering in the bedroom, he told me that I was being pathetic.  Sounds insensitive, right?  But I was pretty pathetic--and rightly so...I was sick!  Anyway, he was much better last night.  We figured that the best thing for me to do would be to feed her at bedtime, and then take Nyquil so that I could get some sleep.  He would then put her to bed in her crib and feed her bottles if she woke up.  It would be heavenly if I could have slept all the way through the night like the commercials portray, but I ended up waking up when she did (or maybe she woke up because I woke up coughing).  Even though the Nyquil should be okay, I didn't want to run the risk of what it might do to her little system, so we stuck to the bottles, and I did a "pump and dump" for the first time.  It hurt to pour so much milk down the drain--especially since she seems to be eating more at daycare than what I am pumping at work (it had been my intent--long before I got sick--to spend the weekend pumping and storing...but that's not really going to happen now).  Anyway, my husband it taking good care of us.  He still thinks I'm a bit pathetic, but he's doing all that he can to help us get well again.