Yup, I try to lift something, and, despite my best intentions, I feel a pop in the right side, all around my rib cage. The pain is so sharp that it kills me even to take a breath. It feels like a have a hot knife piercing my chest and sticking out of my back, and every inflation of my right lung is pure white-hot agony.
Well, it's on the right side. Can't be a heart attack. Must be that heavy lifting I did earlier when I tried to move a cooler full of ice and cava wine.
When I'm in an empty aisle so people won't look at me funny, I whimper. The wait in line is unbearable. I am in so much pain that my eyeballs and bulging out of their sockets. "Hurry," I pray, "hurry, hurry, hurry."
Finally, I make it to the car and down two naproxen. It takes about fifteen minutes for them to start kicking in. Oh thank the pharmaceutical gods, I'm not dying anymore. Now I'm merely suffering from what feels like broken ribs.
Ninety minutes later I am able to move and feel almost normal. Even now, twelve hours later, I cannot take a deep breath, but I'm not wishing for the state police to rescue me anymore.
