Close call - not for the faint of heart...

So around 9pm yesterday (My b-day) my ribs started hurting for no good reason. I didn't get hit or do anything stupid yet, so I was quite baffled. So I figured a good nights sleep would take care of it. Well, I didn't get much sleep since I picked up my old Program manager from the airport in the afternoon and we decided to go out for dinner and whatever else the night brought us. I got back to my hotel around 3 again and went to bed on my side since laying on my back really hurt. So I got up this morning, pounded my morning Red Bull with a side of toast and strawberry jam for breakfast, and headed to Köln to work for the day. In a daze I missed my exit (what a shocker) and ended up at work pretty late. So walking into the plant with my ribs and shoulder hurting not really able to take deep breaths since it hurts that much, I begin to cough. Not only is it more painful then when I broke my foot but I am graced with the pleasant belated birthday present of spitting out a sizable loogey of shiny red blood.

Then my adventure of the German health system has begun. I went to the doctor at the plant and he said coughing up blood is not an issue and gave me some ibuprofen for the pain. Which doesn't work by the way. Obviously dissatisfied with that I got my colleague to get in touch with our home office and called up my awesome HR rep to find a doctor. Somewhere lost in the translation my HR rep calls me and says to head directly to the hospital. Now I've coughed up blood once before, but that was a result of a serious sinus infection. Right now I'm not sick and in a lot of pain, but I don't think it's that serious, but definitely worth getting checked out. So it turns out that thanks to translation error, people here thought I was vomiting blood this morning. Very funny stuff.

I did finally see a doctor and the kind people at my company finally stepped up and they're even covering my bill. Turns out I have something wrong with my spine which is causing the nerve that runs over my 4th rib to be aggravated making breathing and touching the nerve very painful. So the first guy was right and the blood wasn't an issue. I'm going to blame sitting on the benches and crappy chairs in town every day for many hours for this one... well I blame the Euro cup... Anyhow it was an exciting day today full of ups and downs. I'm fine and not dying and will be heading to Düsseldorf in a bit to catch the Deutschland game sporting my new t-shirt and flag. I will not be wearing my €2 jacket, check back at that post for the story.

Cheers!