i didn't understand it was possible to hurt this badly; to feel this sort of soul-crushing pain. i mean, i suppose i sort of acknowledged the idea of it, just as you - having never broken a bone - can acknowledge that breaking one is going to hurt. i've broken bones before, literally and figuratively, and so i thought i knew what to expect. but i forgot that there's an intense difference between, say, fracturing your wrist and breaking a couple of ribs. (both of which i've had the displeasure of experiencing, thankyouverymuch.) the wrist hurts, it lays you up for a while, it's difficult to do a lot of the things you're used to doing.... but after a short while the pain is more annoying than anything, and you quickly learn to compensate with the other hand until the pain has faded completely. breaking ribs, on the other hand, is a totally different story. the pain is intense, crippling. it's hard to breathe, it's stabbingly painful to even try, and the slightest movement in any part of your body will set off explosions of white-hot searing pain. and that shit doesn't heal quickly, either. with a wrist, you can put on a cast or a splint, give it a month or two, and you're as good as new. ribs? yeah, not so much. there's nothing you can do short of immobilizing your entire body, and the stabbing pain can take between 6 months and a year to go away. and even after it's supposedly healed, it can still give you twinges, years later. so i thought i'd known emotional pain and heartache, but it turns out it was just a fractured wrist. now i've got several crushed and broken ribs and i'm struggling for my very breath. not a pretty picture, granted, but at least it's accurate, and may help explain how i'm feeling...
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