On holiday about ten days ago, I met up one day with my Uncle (Tax Tony) and his family who were staying nearby in Spain. Then Tony, my 18 year old cousin and I went Go-Karting.
The problem being, young Boff (as he bizarrely likes to be known) is a bit of a petrol head; he loves to drive and even studies racing lines. And I, well, am a naff driver but far too competitive. Worse still, having only really raced on computer games, I’d forgotten that in real life you can get hurt.
Instinctively, when I got to the first hairpin I was so intent on catching up, I braked too late, leading to one of those slow motion moments: I was heading into the tyre wall and nothing I could do was going to make a blind bit of difference.
I hit the tyres at somewhere between 20 and 30 mph, which doesn’t sound much, but it was a massive jolt which left me winded and a bit dazed. Like most blokes, stupidly I carried on and finished the race, in quite a deal of pain around my ribs both front and back. Luckily my breathing wasn’t affected.
My ribs got better then worse…
After a few days soaking in the sun, I got home and things started to feel better, but over the last few days it’s got much worse. Over the weekend I woke up trying to stretch out the discomfort and suddenly received a staggering jolt. The pain was excruciating, so I went for some medical treatment.
The diagnosis was simple, it’s very likely I’ve one or two broken ribs, (though they won’t do X-rays as whether they’re broken or not doesn’t impact the treatment, and so there’s no need to go through the radioactivity). There’s little that can be done, just strong painkillers and anti-inflammatories.
Then the cold started…
If that wasn’t bad enough, I started coughing, and as you can imagine, that hurts a lot with bad ribs. Yet it’s nothing compared to sneezing. I can honestly say it feels how I imagine being stabbed feels. After sneezing the pain in my side was so intense, it threw me to the floor, and I was unable to move for three or four minutes afterwards, with my eyes streaming (or at least that’s how I’m going to describe it…) and a very worried MSF standing by my side.
I’m writing this dosed up on the doctor’s prescriptions and heavy decongestants in a bid to curb the sneezing.
The timing couldn’t have been worse; the new series of It Pays to Watch, which tends to be an energetic show, starts soon, add that to the usual GMTV and radio programmes, and current heavy demand due to the economic climate, and I could really do without the limited movement. So if you see me grimacing on the telly at any point, now you’ll know the real reason why.
PS Just incase anyone reading this knows my grandmother, please don’t mention it. I haven’t told her, she would be upset and very worried. It’s the reason Im trying hard to disguise any obvious problems on any media appearances. Luckily she isn’t on the internet.
