Super Veins!

Last week, I woke up at three in the morning in excruciating pain. "Great," I thought, "I broke my leg while I was sleeping."

Now, I hear you asking, "Stuart, how in the WORLD could you break your leg in your sleep?"

Thanks for asking! First, I'm a very violent sleeper. Second, over the past year-and-a-half, I've broken my leg twice and didn't even know it. I knew I was in horrific pain, but just powered through it. I was even walking on the treadmill with a broken leg. Twice. Anyway...I know what broken leg pain feels like. Yet, this seemed much, much worse.

And here's where my wife got aggravated. She thought I should go to the doctor. Me? I hate going to the doctor. I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if you could just get in and out, but for whatever reason, doctors love to make you wait and wait and wait...a sort of mental water drop torture as you wait on the edge of your seat in searing agony to find out if you're gonna die. Plus, wh0 do you find at doctors' offices? Sick people! No thanks.

I told my wife, "Let's just give it a couple of days, see if it'll heal up."

Well. Turned out my wife was right. (As usual, grumble, brumble, grumble...) After three extremely painful, sleepless nights, my wife had had enough and said, "You're going to the doctor."

I caved. Problem was, it was the Fourth of July. So we had to go to the E.R., thus turning what could've been a $40 doctor visit into $40 plus a couple of extra "0's".

At the E.R., we go through all of the million dollar hullabaloo. X-rays are taken (kaching!) and a technician performed an ultrasound on my leg (kaching, kaching!) while dollar signs rolled in his greedy eyes like a human slot machine.

After the E.R. doctor examined all of his findings, he came back in. Fairly speechless. He shook his head (I knew I was dying at that point), scrambling for words.

Finally, he mustered, "Well...you have some seriously very impressive veins going on! I've never seen so many, so swollen! Your veins even showed up on the x-rays! I've NEVER seen that before! I was hesitant to give you pain meds at first, but yeah, here, take however many you need. Whatever."

Proudly, I puffed out my chest, knuckles burrowed into my sides like Superman striking a heroic pose. I said, "I don't know whether to be proud of this super accomplishment or to be very, very afraid."

So. My leg wasn't broken. I wasn't dying. But my Super Veins had swollen up on me ("Edema") because I'd over stressed them on the treadmill.

The cure? Stick my legs up on the wall as much as possible. Great $4,000 advice.

What have we learned here?

A) I have super veins;
B) Never seek out a doctor on a holiday;
C) Listen to your spouse;
D) Exercise is bad for you.

Speaking of really, really bad decisions, my protagonist in my new book, Corporate Wolf, has a tendency to make quite a few of them. Which ultimately leads him down the path to lycanthropy and...MURDERRRRRRRR. See how (if?) he gets out of very, very bad trouble.