Getting old sucks

First, a little bit of a backstory…

One evening back in April 2023, shortly after I stopped working for the day and was letting the dog out to do his business, I coughed. I felt like I had some mucus in my chest that I was trying to clear out, so I coughed again — hard — and instantly dropped to my knees in the worst pain I’ve ever experienced.

I somehow managed to call the dog back inside, and then sat on the edge of the bed trying to catch my breath in between extremely sharp, shooting pains in my left side. My first thought was:

“Did I really just break a fucking rib while coughing?”

I tried to lay on the bed, but being flat on my back was excruciating, so I sat back up and managed to kind of prop myself up with every pillow I could grab. I yelled for Melissa, and she helped me get myself into a position where I could finally breathe, but I didn’t sleep much that night due to the crazy amount of pain.

The next day, I went to a hospital/ER that’s about 5 minutes from my house. I was in an extreme amount of pain and was starting to get a massive bruise — it eventually went from just above my waistline to up near my armpit and wrapped halfway around my torso. I was taken for X-rays, and the tech noticed that I was in extreme pain and tried to “not make it worse” by not making me lift my arms while taking some of the scans¹.

The radiologist reviewed the X-rays and found no fractures. Based on that, the ER doc said I had bronchitis (hence the coughing) and that the rib pain was likely from a muscle strain. He gave me an antibiotic and a cough suppressant for the bronchitis, a single dose of pain meds and steroid shot for the pain, and sent me on my way.

Side note: I highly recommend not breaking a rib while you have bronchitis, because every time you cough (and you WILL cough) it will feel like your soul is being snatched from your body.

The next morning I was in so much pain that Melissa had to call the hospital to talk to the doctor because I could barely speak. We finally got him on the phone and I explained what was going on as best I could, and he agreed to prescribe some pain meds.

Finally, a little relief².

As I slowly healed, the pain became less and less intense over the next couple of months and I was feeling mostly back to normal. And then… 💥

One night in June while I was asleep, I rolled over, and I coughed. It immediately felt like I was stabbed in my back. My screaming/yelling woke Melissa (I was right next to her and it took multiple times yelling her name to wake her 😂 — I swear this woman can sleep through anything). She helped me get to an upright position and eventually prop myself up so I was able to catch my breath.

I called my regular doctor the next day and made an appointment to see her. She checked me out and sent me for X-rays³. I was in and out pretty quickly, and I had a notification from the radiologist before I even got back to my car. I broke my left 7th posterior rib. My doctor prescribed me some more meds, and she told me to take it easy for the next 6-12 weeks so the break could heal.

This entire time I was nearly 100% convinced that I had broken a rib the first time and they missed it. It was mostly a hunch, but I thought this because I felt like there were too many similarities in the pain and the other symptoms for it to be coincidental. Anyway, I eventually put that out of my mind and focused on healing the one that was confirmed broken.

In the two years since then, I’ve had varying amounts of rib pain that comes and goes, but nothing like that pain, and has been mostly manageable with Tylenol.

Fast-forward to this year…

On April 29th of this year, I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. That shit was a wake-up call, and I immediately changed my diet and started taking better care of myself. I’m currently down 25+ lbs since the beginning of May, and my glucose levels and cholesterol are where they should be. So far, so good.

One thing I’ve noticed recently is that my ribs have started to hurt again. There’s a big ass lump on the left side of my ribs and, while it’s not always very painful, it’s really annoying, feels really weird⁴, and hurts like hell when I sneeze or cough. It makes lying or rolling onto my left side feel like I’m lying on top of something, and just sucks in general.

I had a follow-up appointment last week to check my A1C levels and run another lipid panel, so I mentioned it to my doctor. She checked it out, agreed it was weird, and wanted me to get more X-rays to try to figure out what’s going on. I went to the hospital to get them yesterday and got the results back today.

No new fractures (which we already knew), but they found TWO previously unknown healed fractures that were missed on my initial ER visit⁵ 😡 A “large overlying callus” formed over the breaks and that is the lump that’s there.

Dr. Google says this about it:

Ribs overlying callus formation is a normal part of the bone healing process after a rib fracture. During this process, a temporary⁶, protective mass of fibrous tissue, cartilage, and new bone, known as a callus, forms around the broken rib to bridge the fracture gap. On follow-up imaging, such as an X-ray, this callus may appear as a nodular density overlying the rib.

My doctor is going to have me see pain management to see if there’s anything that can be done, but I think it’s probably going to end up being something I’m just going to have to live with.

The unexpected joys of getting older (not really)

One other thing the X-rays did show unexpectedly — and I am SO HAPPY⁷ about this — are kidney stones in my left kidney, with the largest being 8mm⁸ ☹️ Since they only took images of my left side to see the ribs, my doctor is sending me for an ultrasound on my kidneys to get a better look at the situation.

Have I mentioned that I hate this shit? I hate getting old, I hate having these problems, and I hate that I just kind of have to live in a semi-constant state of pain and discomfort because someone fucked up doing their job 2+ years ago.

Anyway, enough bitching, I’ll just keep dealing like I always do (hooray for medical marijuana⁹).

Next up, a kidney ultrasound on the afternoon of September 11th. Wish me luck.