Kids, I’m dying. Here’s how it happened.

Yesterday, I sneezed and hurt my back. Bill had a late night with his gig, so I was walking in to wake him up when I sneezed. That one, tiny little sneeze caused every muscle in my upper back to constrict and shrink in on itself. So what Bill woke up to yesterday morning was “Bill honey, it’s time to OOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! GODDAMN FUCKING SON OF A BITCH WHORE!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKFUCKFUCK OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!”

I should have put my finger under my nose.

True to form, Bill’s first reaction was to ask if I was okay, and his second was to talk about changing the settings on his alarm clock off of “pained wife.”

To which I responded with “OWOWWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWO!!!! FUCKFUCKFUCK I HATE YOU! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

I know my body. I’ve always had muscle tightness issues. I actually once had a masseur poke at my back for about 5 minutes, and then say “I… I’m not even sure where to begin.” I’ve done a lot of lifting in my day. Not nearly as much as I was a few months ago when I was tossing 70 pound printers around like it was no big deal. I once carried a 50 pound iMac several blocks because we were all out of hand trucks and I was NOT going to miss my appointment because the boys couldn’t be bothered to haul a 20 pds monitor without wheels. I’ve done tumbling, fighting, and dancing. I push my body hard near constantly, and through trial and error, I learned when I should push, when I should stretch, and when to stop.

I knew that before I could even diagnose myself proper, I had to get the rest of my back to relax a little. I did yoga child pose and after a bit slowly worked in some cobra pose. Moved into cat pose, and then some downward facing dog. What are those? Those, dear reader, are douchebag words us Uptown fitness wanna-bes use when we want to sound like we did a lot of hippy workout stuff when what we actually did was stretched.

Here are some other poses for you kids.

After I was able to kinda get some of the muscles to relax a bit, I worked my way over to the computer and Googled “upper back pain.” But there were so many different types of injuries, and almost all of them had to do with slipped disks, which I was pretty sure had not just happened.

So when I couldn’t get the answer I needed from Google, I turned to my next reliable source of information… Facebook. I told the kids I was looking for some stretches for my back and asked if anyone knew any.

I got everything but. Lots of people telling me to ice it and rest, a couple people telling me to go to the doctor. All good advice if I had actually pulled it. But I was pretty sure this was still just most of my muscles constricted and needing a little it’s okay, it’ll all be okay stretching. There was so much going on, I just needed to get more of my back to relax before trying to really get into the problem and how to fix it.

But this, dear reader, is how I learned I’m dying. In among all this advice was a warning from a friend “Also check for other possible symptoms of other illnesses” with a link to Heart Attack Symptoms for Women.

I responded that I had sneezed.

And my dear friend replies with “Sneezing can be very dangerous!”

So you see, I’m dying. I had a heart attack the same moment I sneezed, popping my ear drum and cracking my rib. It’s been great knowing you all.

**Writer’s note: I have been icing it like a good girl… don’t any of you start telling me what to do or I’ll hunt you down and wake you up with Bill’s “pained wife” alarm clock setting. No really- I don’t recommend it.**