Those with squeamish stomachs should not look at the picture at the end of this post.
Sunday the 5th, Tim and I went rock climbing up in the mountains, as we are prone to do. However, my heart murmur/palpitation chose that day to be incredibly irritating. Most of the day found me rather weak and shaky, but we'd never been to this mountain before and I was determined to reach the top.
I made sure to stay hydrated and take breaks as often as possible. We reach the top in our alloted time, and take a good hour's rest. We climb back down, and then begin the hike down the mountain trail to the bottom. Halfway down, I have a rather vicious palpation that causes my legs to buckle and me to go sliding down off the trail a good ways to end in a pile of rocks with a rather triangular one painfully against my tail bone.
Unable to breathe and unable to walk, with the skies quickly growing dark, Tim picks me up and begins to pick his way back down the fast darkening path, trying not to stumble over rocks or jostle me too much.
After about 10 minutes, I was able to walk on my own with him as crutch, though each step was excruciating and I sobbed the whole way down. I rode on my stomach in the car back to our place.
By the time we got here, my tail bone had swelled to the size of the softball. I've broken it 2 times before, once when I was 8 and fell out the second story of a house, and then again when I was 12 and got kicked during soccer when I was down. This pain felt incredibly similar, so assuming it was broken and after having been told by doctors over the years they can't do anything, I just took some ibuprofen and put some ice on it, followed by a heating pad.
My grandmother gave me her leftover prescription for hydrocodones, and Tim made me stay home from work Monday-Wednesday, though at my insistence let me work Thursday and Friday, though only lightly. The hydrocodones rendered the area pretty numb, but the swelling had not gone down much.
As the week went on, I did find myself in less pain, and able to walk and move better... until my hydrocodones ran out on Sunday. By Sunday night, I was in constant pulsing pounding aching throbbing twisting twirking grinding icy hot pain. I balled my eyes out until 2:30 in the morning, when Tim, concerned by the spasming of my muscles, forced me into the car and to the Emergency Room.
My mom met us there and I was admitted. I was asked a bunch of stupid, pointless questions that had nothing to do with my tail bone. I was shown to a room, made to put on a gown, and then made to wait 45 minutes until a nurse came in.
Before I go any father, let me tell you that at 2:30 in the morning, the ER here is DEAD. We were the only ones there. And yet it took 45 minutes for a nurse to come see me. She flipped my gown up, glanced at me, then informed us a doctor would be with me shortly.
Shortly meant it was 4 am before a doctor came into my room. He too flipped my gown open, prodded and poked very ungently, eliciting some yelps from me, and then told me he was sending me off for x-rays.
Which didn't happen until 4:45. They made me lay on my back, flat, on my aching tailbone, while the x-ray chick fumbled and fucked up and had to take at least 5 x-rays. Then I was wheeled back to my room.
5:10 am comes, and a nurse comes in with the announcement that they are discharging me with 3 days worth of pills - an anti-inflammatory and a mild pain medication.
After I just got off hydrocodones.
They claimed that my tail bone was merely bruised, and that if the pain persisted past Wednesday to see my primary health care physician.
Now, let me guys show you this "bruising" that the doctor found.
This would be puss, coming out of 1 of 2 puncture wounds located at the base of my tail bone.
3 times today, Tim has sat at my side with a rag, gently sqeezing and massaging OUNCES of fluid out of my tail bone area. Once the puss comes out, a clear fluid follows, followed by blood. Within 3 hours, everything he's drained has returned and he will again have to assist me in draining it.
Isn't that a lovely looking bruise though? I mean, I'm no doctor... but...
:/
The good news is with each draining, I can lift my legs higher and the pain is not as intense, and I have an appointment for my childhood doctor early tomorrow morning, because she's seen me since I was a baby, and I'm sure she'll care enough about me to actually look.
So yes, computers are painful and I'm not on much, and if I end up having to have surgery, then that's 5 weeks of a painful butt
>.<
I really, really hate ERs and I will probably never go to one again. Psht, as if I didn't hate hospitals enough.
Takin care of someone is hard work, and taking care of someone with a butt injury is even harder 
