Bruised Ribs

A blow. A fall. An impact. And suddenly there is this pain in the chest that will not go away. Every deep breath hurts. Every cough, every laugh, every unguarded movement sends a stab through the chest. You cannot simply stretch out, cannot simply turn, cannot simply let go. The body forces you to be careful — with every single one of the roughly twenty thousand breaths you take each day.

Medically, bruised ribs are a blunt injury to the chest without a fracture: tissue, periosteum and small vessels are bruised, often with hematoma and pain lasting for days or weeks. The treatment is simple — rest, cooling, patience. What medicine does not answer is a different question: Why this particular spot? Why the protective cage of your heart? And why now?