Hmmm? Isn't it? Banana?

Sod's law

Well, being as this is the 200th post on my blog, I shall make it be all high brow and include toilet humour, I reckon. I shall give a brief summary of the last few weeks and how it has culminated in some discomfort for me today:

So, I go out for a night of debauchery with a couple of mates (Keith and Julio) two weeks ago on Saturday. As regular readers will have twigged by now, this got very silly and messy. It culminated in me and Julio (not down in the schoolyard, no) pissing about on the way home, after 11 hours drinking, and me falling over on some icy leaves. In my desire to remain in roughly the same approximation of upright that I had been previously struggling with, I grabbed Julio for support.

Big mistake.

He wasn't exactly possessing of cat-like reflexes, stability or control either, so I continued to fall over entirely unabated and crack my head on the tarmac. By way of support and solidarity, Julio promptly fell on top of me. All 16 stone of him. Consequently, I eventually arose - to sympathetic cries of "Will you silly twats get off the bloody floor!?" from Keith - with a large lump appearing on the side of my head and feeling rather winded. We then staggered the rest of the way home, as I stoically took the abuse for dragging Julio on the floor. By the time we got to the flat I had a bleeding and rather impressive egg appearing on the side of my (expansive) forehead with accompanying headache, so Keith made me up an icepack - he gave it to me with the caring words: "Here you go, silly bollocks" - and I went to bed.

However, when I woke in the morning I had two problems (not including the stupendous hangover). First: I found a wet patch in the bed. For a couple of horrified minutes I wondered whether I had wet the bed or something suitably pathetic. Then I found the tea towel and the remains of the ice pack, and realised that I had obviously gone to sleep with it still in the bed with me and it had melted. Nice. Then I tried to get up, and my ribs hurt like fuck. This got worse for a while until it settled into a nice, steady 'Hurts like a bastard' level. For extra comedy effect, I also had a cough, which goes so extraordinarily well with buggered ribs, I can tell you.

I figured that I had just bruised them (or rather, Julio's fat bulk had) so I ignored it as best I could and just tried to take it easy. This continued until the following Wednesday, with them getting slightly better but still hurting every time I tried to get up or coughed or tried to pick anything up. "Ho hum", thunk I, "I shall just wait until the bruising goes". Unfortunately, on Wednesday, I had an unexpected visitor who, er.... demanded of me physically. Ahem. I could hardly decline; beggars can't be choosers at my age, I can tell you.

To cut a sordid (although very pleasant at the time) story short, I was back to slightly behind stage one, because the next morning I couldn't get out of bed. This was the cause of some hilarity to the lady in question, until she realised that I wasn't joking. And that it hurt. Lots. She then felt very guilty, and frankly so she should. So it appeared to me that if I hadn't actually cracked my ribs on the Saturday (which I suspect I had - I cracked them that side a few years ago), then I certainly had now. I tried taking some pain killers that I had for a few days but it got little better and everything I did (even shopping) seemed to make it worse. Added to that, for the 10 days until I actually called the doctors, the pain from my ribs was such that my sleep was somewhat sketchy and I was exhausted. I hadn't slept for more than hour at a time. Sleep had been following this pattern:

1: Make myself comfortable
2: Slowly drift off to sleep for a small period
3: Move in sleep
4: Wake up violently through rib pain
5: Shout "Cunt"
6: Lie awake for about 10 minutes until I stop hurting.
7: Repeat from stage 1.

Not helpful. So I eventually got some pills form the Doctor to help - some muscle relaxants and some pain killers. I have been taking them for the last three days. It has been gradually improving until yesterday when the dose of the tablets has built up to the stage where I can't actually feel any discomfort. There is a little stiffness first thing in the morning, but...well...that's perfectly normal, isn't it...?

So, the tablets are working, and I feel normal. Except there is just one tiny thing.

The tablets give me the shits.

That's right. I have the squits as a side effect. Complete with stomach cramps. That's a nice choice, isn't it? Either I can't sleep through waking myself up every hour, or I get a full nights sleep and risk shitting the bed.

Brilliant.

I take back all my beliefs (or lack of them). Maybe I should concede that there is a God. Because if there is, the bastard hates me...

If you'll excuse me, I need to go for a crap.

posted by Brock @ Saturday, December 03, 2005