Will you cry for me?

Because I can't. It hurts WAY too much.

**As always, if you have not been tracking my whole "I got run over by a car" saga, start on July 22, 2008 and work your way up.**

If you have ever been to the hospital for trauma, a stubbed toe, to birth a child, or to have an x-ray, you are probably familiar with the following question: "How would you rate your pain?"

They asked me that, a lot, on my first night in the ICU. Unfortunately for me, (and him) there was another bike vs car incident about 2 hours after mine. (Still don't know how that turned out and am not sure I want to.) So I was pretty much left alone for about 4 hours after I was stabalized.

Those of you who know me well are fully aware that morphine and I DO NOT get along. Oh, how it makes me itch! It is terrible! I let the nurses know this, and it turned out to be a BIG mistake. Only because their focus was now on patient #2 (completely understandable) and I was left alone in the ICU with a pharmacy that only stocked morphine. They had to wait for the pharmacy downstairs to get the alternate meds. I was not happy. Neither was Dale, cause I kept telling him (okay, yelling at him) to make a nurse get me some drugs. I wasn't too nice about it, either. The nurse kept asking me my pain level, and I would shout, "9.7!" Isn't that sort of random? She would repeat, "9.7?" like, I can't believe we're using decimals right now. It was so weird. Anyway, they said they wouldn't give me morphine cause they didn't want me to be uncomfortable and itchy. To me, that's like telling someone who is dehydrated and near death in the desert that you have water, but you don't want to give it to them because it might have an after-taste! I think it was about 4 hours before I finally got drugged enough to where I could actually sleep.

At some point they decided to put in the chest tube. Man, I don't even want to get into that. At one point I was grumbling and probably saying something like, "son of gun!", and one of the medical people around said, "It's okay to swear; we don't really care." I actually said, "I don't swear. Ever." I was kind of proud of myself. Okay, so some of you have heard me use a couple of choice words, but only when I'm really mad at someone or a situation. I don't swear for 9.7 pain, only for personal vindiction. Funny what you learn about yourself, huh?

They say no pain, no gain, but come on. There have been two other significant times of pain in my life. The first was when Sarah was born. There was blood in the epidural, and they had to do the c-section "mostly" numb. Mostly numb my rear end! I could actually feel them cut into my bod! Then I hemmoraged, so they had to press down on my fresh, new, scare to get all the blood out. Poor new mothers. They did this in the mother-baby unit. I'm sure my neighbors were thrilled to hear my screams of agony while they were doing that! But I did get gain out of that. My beautful ray of sunshine, my beautiful little Sarah.

The second time I had remarkable pain was when I had gallbladder problems. That was terrible. I'm not even going to get into it. The pain was so bad I was vomiting. (I wanted to vomit at the hospital, but they wouldn't let me because of the chest tube. Plus, it wasn't worth it--I NEVER throw up as it is--let alone when I have 4 fractured ribs and a cracked sternem. No, thank you!) Anyway, I didn't get anything out of that but a small vial of gall stones. Neat souvenir, but not really worth it, ya know?

This pain has been the worst, by far, and has lasted to longest, by far. I'm still dealing with it, over 4 weeks after the accident. They finally got me an epidural at the hospital, which saved me from having my chest cavity opened and getting a few screws drilled in my chest. Since I've been home, though, it's been me and my friend Percocet, and that's rapidly running out! It is getting better, though, and I thank heaven everyday that I am here to feel this pain. Not that I like being in pain, you understand. I just sort of like being alive, thank you very much!

Dale has been feeling the pain, too. I got out of the shower a few days ago, and involuntarily I hiccuped. Dale actually heard my chest crackling. Gross, huh? And yes, it hurt.

I was feeling the burn on my way to the church and then I got run over by a car.