“Bubblz In Ur Chest—You Haz Dem.”

or  If my sister were a LOLCAT, how she would have broken the news to me that I had crepitus.

  I have a condition called Ulcerative Colitis (UC).  It is quite literally, a pain in the behind.  While it has “reared” its ugly head on and off throughout the last 17 years of my life, thankfully, I am in remission.  
  
  A few years ago, during a particularly awful UC flare, I was on meds that had me feeling bloated, batty and sad.  In an effort to get some endorphins swimming and elevate my overall demeanor, one of my best friends met me at the gym at 5:30 AM.  (What was I thinking? Working out never "works out" for me.  My sister, Becka, told me once that all exercise-related injuries occur while exercising.  Smart woman.)  Upon successful completion of the final exercise, I stood up, and lamented, “Ooph!” 

  Oy.  I pulled a muscle in my neck.  Stupid exercise.

  A muscle relaxer made my bloated, batty, sad neck pain feel all warm and loopy.  However, the pain persisted.

  Fast forward sixty hours to Friday night.  We are at a friend’s home for a group Shabbat event.  In hindsight, perhaps I should have mentioned to someone, to anyone, that I had developed a couple of new symptoms: 1) at the end of each sentence, my voice turned into something like Kermit on helium, and 2) it felt like there was bubble wrap under the skin in my chest. (Yes, gross, I know.  Or as it turns out to some, utterly cool.)

  My sister is a nephrologist, and she was in attendance at this particular Shabbat.  Here is the conversation that followed:

Mindy:  “I don’t feel so well, will you feel my glands?  Oh, and I think I have bubbles in my chest.”

Becka:  (blink, blink—she got that from our Dad.  Blink, blink can be translated a few ways depending on the context.  In this case, I believe it was a combination of  ‘beg pardon and WTF?”).  She felt my chest and neck.  I know now I can safely identify when a doctor thinks you are going to drop dead on the spot but wants to remain calm.  Then very measured,
“You.  Have.  Crepitus.  Sit.  Down. You’re not short of breath or anything, are you?”

Mindy:  “No. Am I going to die?” (Had to ask).

Becka:  More measured in her voice, but now earnestly waving over a fellow doc in the room.  “Noooo.  Sit down though. Are you SURE you’re not short of breath?  Really?”
To the other physician, “Feel this.”

  So here I am getting “felt” by another doc.   And for kicks, I watch his facial expression, eyebrows first, morph from casual to surprise, maybe awe.

Other doctor:  (did I detect the smallest of smiles?) “She has crepitus.”

Mindy: Again, with more feeling: “Am I going to die? What is crepitus?  It sounds like I’m going into a crypt or something.”

  Next I become the episode of Gray’s Anatomy where the residents of the hospital are lining up to feel my crepitus.  Apparently, one does not often behold many walking talking 30 somethings with spontaneous pneumomediastinum, let alone have the opportunity to gawk and squish one.  (Turns out I popped a hole in my lung, which leaked air into my chest and neck which caused all of those nifty bubbles, I referred to earlier.)

  There’s much more to the story, but it turns out that I never pulled a muscle in my neck.  When I said, “Ooph!”  that was the hole going “popsies” in my lung.  As such, I learned the new word,  “bleb,” a small air blister on my lung.  The bleb was bound to rupture one day, and it decided that 5:30 in the morning at the gym was as good a place as any. (Can’t say I disagree.  I was not all that happy to be there either.)  
“Blebz. I may haz dem again.”  I have a 17% of this reoccurring.  If it does, I then have a 99% of it happening again.

  I do not know why people look at me oddly when my hands are all over my chest; I feel I clear it up for them with my simple explanation, “I am just checking for bubbles.