A post about what happened so far, so I don't forget it.

Saturday, January 25, 2012 my sister and I were at Target looking for blinds.

When we were leaving the store, I slipped on the icy/snowy parking lot (it had just snowed heavily and the lot had not been plowed yet) and landed flat on my back. With the help of my sister and two strangers, I was able to get up. Nothing appeared to be broken so we went on our way.

Within fifteen minutes, I started to feel a rather sharp pain in my sternum, about half way down and slightly toward the right. We went to Heisley to do a typical workout but I could not do it. Instead of doing the treadmill and some weight machines, I was only able to do a couple of miles on the treadmill at 3.0 mph instead of my usual 3.4-3.6 and a 3-5% incline. I could not bear the thought of doing weight machines.

I went home and wrote an email to Kelly and Karen and Jan telling them of what happened and that I wasn't going to be able to go to dinner that night because I hurt so bad, and indeed that I was thinking I might have to go to the ER. I decided against the ER because nothing seemed to be broken, I knew it wasn't my heart because of the treadmill earlier when I had monitored my pulse (never got over 120) with my pulse watch, and I knew that if it was rib related (as I suspected) that there wasn't a whole lot that could be done - those injuries typically have to heal on their own.

Sunday, I went to church and then to Jan's for a knitting lesson and then to rehearsal. I had taken 800 mg of Advil not long after I got up and another 800 mg at rehearsal. Coffee at Starbucks with Kat and then home. After working in the kitchen for some time, my sternum was really aching, my shoulders were aching, and my middle back really started to hurt. I decided that it was probably time to see what was going on.

Monday morning, the 27th, I texted my chiropractor, Dr. Volk, and told him that when he got the chance I needed to talk to him. He called and we set up an appointment for 5:30 that evening.

I also called my regualr physicians's officce (Dr. Goraya) but she had no openings today. Instead, I have an 8:00AM appointment tomorrow morning with one of her colleagues, Dr. Nezir.

I also called the Mentor Target. Spoke to Stew Thompson, the manager. He told me that I would have to come down to fill out a claim and that it would be sent to corporate and they would handle it, that they don't do anything locally. I told him that was ok but that since it would be a day or two before I could get down there that he might want to isolate and preserve the video to send along to corporate. He seemed surprised that I knew about that and I told him that I work for MPD and that I know he'll have video of it and just didn't want too much time to go by and that he should save it.

He put me on hold to see what he could do, and someone picked up the phone a couple of times and asked if I was still waiting for Stew. I said yes, but after the second time, I asked the woman on the phone to have him call me since I was at work and being on the phone that long was not good.

A woman named Jen called me back not long after that. She asked me if I had time to fill out a claim over the phone. I said sure, no problem. So she took down the information and told me that they would send it off to corporate. She gave me the phone number to corporate - 1-800-553-8723 - and said that I should be hearing from them soon.

Both Stew and Jen were very pleasant to talk to and so far it has been a postive experience.