Time to suck it up

It didn't seem like a particularly dangerous thing to do: walk down our driveway, turn left and take my daily two-mile stroll around the neighborhood.

But before I even got to the mailbox yesterday, I found myself in the air, and on my way to a violent collision with the pavement. I had slipped on some black ice.

I landed on my left side, with my elbow tucked in close. The force of the collision drove the elbow into one of my ribs.

I scrambled to my feet, wet from landing partly in a puddle, feeling more humiliated than hurt. After all, I have enough health concerns without doing something as stupid as slipping on ice.

I felt a little sore on the walk, and more so as the day wore on, although I was still able to run errands, sit in front of my computer and go out to dinner.

But when I went to bed, I sat up for a while doing a crossword puzzle. When I went to turn out the light and turn over about 15 minutes later, I found any movement resulted in a stabbing pain at the point my elbow had hit my ribs. It was agony.

I got to sleep with the help of a painkiller originally given to me after the cancer surgery in June, and carefully took stock of my body when I woke up. I gingerly got out of bed, delighted to find there were some movements that didn't make me wince.

It still hurts like hell, but x-rays taken today were negative, and the consensus of my family is it's time for me to suck it up. Janice suggested the whole incident at least subliminally is an attempt to get rid of the tumor, since that's exactly where my elbow hit my ribs.