“And what about if I press here?”

“Yes, that hurts.”

“Here?”

“Yup.”

“And here?”

My eyes welled up as I gripped the sides of the bed. “Yes, that's really quite painful.”

“Mmm. I'm sorry to say you've broken a rib.”

Recumbent in a GP's examination room was not how I'd intended to spend a Monday morning some five days before we moved from our London flat to the Home County. There was all sorts to be done at work as I took over a new team, let alone the boxes at home which rudely and resolutely refused to pack themselves.

I'd been suffering from a cough since the beginning of the year, which had got worse during a work trip to the Middle East; better on holiday under two weeks of balmy South Asian sun; and then evolved into a full blown chest infection upon landing at Heathrow several weeks prior. The prescribed antibiotics had done their thing, but the cough still lingered. And then, the previous evening while washing up after supper, a coughing fit got the better of me.

“Are you ok? That doesn't sound good. I think you need to go back to the doctor,” The Writer said as, tea towel in hand, I doubled over, hacking.

Which was when something snapped.

“Ow,” I said, gasping for breath. “That hurts. Oh god. That actually really hurts. I think I've pulled a muscle.”

TW gave me his best Hard Stare. “Back to the doctor tomorrow. I'll make you a hot water bottle.”

The pain overnight and agony the following morning persuaded me that he was probably right and down I hobbled to the surgery, wincing with every step, unsure as to how a pulled muscle could be quite so debilitating, and hoping the doctor would give me something more for the cough. Instead, I got a wholly unexpected diagnosis of my first ever broken bone.

“It's not unheard of if you have very strong core and intercostal muscles,” she said, helping me gently off the bed. “But the good news is that they'll hold everything in place while the break heals. The infection has cleared up, but I'm afraid you'll just have to wait for the cough to disappear. And your rib will take a good while to get better.”

Joys.

“Obviously you're limited in terms of what painkillers you can take while you're pregnant.”

Joys abound.

“It'll probably take between six and ten weeks to fully recover, but the first two will be agony, so I'm going to sign you off work.”

Now it was my turn to deploy the Hard Stare. “I don't think that's practical. Could you just suggest I work from home?”

And then hers. “No. There's a reason I'm writing this note. I suggest you don't do anything at all. I'll prescribe a week's codeine for the pain, but stick to paracetemol and rest if you can. It really will be very painful for a while.”

And thus she packed me on my not-so-merry way. It's still not healed, and I'm still grumpy about it - and the fact that my unblemished unbroken record has been shattered in such a pathetic way. *Cough*