Chest pain

No one wants to use the term chest pain. Monday night I realized that any time I took a deep breath, I felt a stabbing pain in my back, up high and just on one side. (I blamed it on mowing my lawn and trimming some tree limbs in bit of rage inspired by bad customer service at a big name company.) I hate taking pills, any kind of pills. As a child, I prolonged learning to swallow pills and made a big production out of it. I still avoid taking pills with water because I think I can taste them. I won't even get into the frequency of gagging and the feeling that my stomach is going to revolt.

I wait until Tuesday to break down and take some Advil. Twice in fact, which is a big deal for me. That is how much it hurt. When there was no improvement, I conclude that Advil is worthless and I shouldn't bother. On Wednesday, I took Advil once more because the pain is now in the front part of my chest and I can't get comfortable trying to lie down. Inhaling deeply is still painful and I find myself taking many shallow breaths to avoid pain, then bracing myself to take one deep breath. Very weird. Advil does nothing, once again, thus proving my earlier conclusion.

I start to consider all the terrible things that could be causing this. I know enough about modern medicine to be dangerous. And I'm flying to Salt Lake City on Wednesday. I don't want to jeopardize this trip with some awful malady or hospital stay. And dear Lord, I might have someone fixing me up on a 'double date' on Tuesday. I certainly can't risk that.

I imagine calling my family doctor and describing the reason I want to be seen today. I just know they will hear the phrase 'chest pain' and tell me to go to the ER. No one wants to go to the ER, especially during summer vacation. So I decide to visit an urgent care. For some reason, I feel they are better equipped to deal with this. I know this doesn't make a ton of sense, but one with chest pain that lasts for four days doesn't have much sense.

I wanted to describe my symptoms as, "upper right quadrant pain but I already had my gallbladder out". I didn't. But the doc was leading that way immediately and I got to tell her anyway. So after two chest x-rays, she tells me it is muscular. I get a pain killer (nothing really strong) and a muscle relaxer. Due poor sleeping from chest pain, my sleep was restless to begin with. I knew a nap was on the agenda. Add a muscle relaxer and I lost the afternoon and most of the evening. My lazy, old dogs don't mind napping and nap we did. Most of the afternoon, and a chunk of the evening.

The true test will be the second dose. If I still sleep well and can breathe deeply, I might just believe in pills. Wake me in time for fall.