Captain, I Have the Bends

I think I’ve got the bends.  Well, not right now, but I had the bends the other night.  I’m very confused about how I got the bends since I’ve not even been in even an elevator for more than a week.

About an hour after I got home from work on Wednesday, I started feeling a burning, sometimes sharp pain in my left elbow. It hurt to bend my elbow, it hurt to rest my elbow on the arm of my comfy chair.  The pain felt like it was inside the joint, not just skin deep.

Luckily for me, I mentioned the burning feeling in my elbow to Mrs. Ender because within about an hour I started getting the same burning, sometimes sharp pain in my right hip and knee.  It was very uncomfortable sitting (even in my comfy chair) or standing or walking or just looking at elbow, hip or knee.

I was actually getting concerned and I was trying to figure out how long I let this go on, or how many more joints had to be affected before I decided it was time to go to the hospital.  Now, going to ER is uber serious for me, because I live by the two-week rule. 

The two-week rule is the rule that something has to be hurting, bleeding or still visibly broken for two weeks before it’s time to go to the doctor.  I learned the two-week rule from my parents, and it saved them from multiple doctor visits and countless dollars as my brother and I were growing up.  The two-week part of the rule isn’t hard and fast; I only waited overnight when I broke my wrist.  The two-week part of the rule came about because I walked around on a broken heel for two weeks before I went to the doctor–hey, it hurt, but it didn’t hurt THAT much.

So anyway, I was thinking hospital visit and Mrs. Ender was prescribing Advil and eventually I went to bed and it didn’t hurt when I woke up.  While I don’t disagree with Mrs. Ender that the location/type of pain could be arthritis, I found it very unlikely that I would go from no arthritis to arthritis in the space of a couple of hours.  Months, probably.  Days, maybe.  Hours, nope.

I don’t know what it was.  The only thing I can come up with is blood clot(s) and/or the bends.  I didn’t think of the bends until just now, but it’s just as likely as any other diagnosis I can come up with.  I like to jump to conclusions and live by the opposite of that medical school diagnostic saying, "when you hear the sound of hooves, think horses and not zebras."   I Sometimes like to just let go and think zebras.  I guess I should be concerned why I only got bubbles in my elbow, hip and knee and not all over.  Or, I can just let it go, I suppose.

Today is Friday.  I hope they have Pasta Pronto in the cafeteria.  I’ve got my stomach set on some hot peppers and pesto sauce.

I got a box of oil from BrambleBerry yesterday.  This weekend I will be making a 5lb batch of goat milk soap with Eucalyptus and Peppermint scent.  That reminds me, I need to make sure I have both Eucalyptus and Peppermint.  I suspect that I might have one (which?) but not the other.

Mrs. Ender has been providing me with a daily countdown of how many days until school is out for the summer.  Jeez, you’d think she was the middle schooler.  Oh, the countdown has been going on for about the last 100 school days. Five more days, in case anyone else needs to know more than I do.

Ender is out.