Visiting the ER in Rifle, Colorado

If you need an emergency room, I don't suppose you could find a better place than Rifle, Colorado—unless you're near the McKee Medical Center in Loveland, Colorado. I'm intimately familiar with just how great that one is, too. They treated me quickly, professionally and gently. They were very nice, sympathetic and thorough. Who could ask for more? They even gave me food with my pain medication.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I did manage to break a rib. It also appears that one of my kidneys is swollen, but all other tests were negative, so no blood in the urine means the kidney will be fine once the swelling goes down. I hit hard, huh?

I was told not to go skiing (an easy enough instruction to follow, since I've never skied before) or do anything stupid... well, I promised not to ski, and to do my very best on the 2nd part, which made the good doctor laugh for some reason. I was being serious.

It's well past time for another pain pill, my first since leaving the hospital room, but Betty's going to feed us first. Everyone's being good to me, and there have been relatively few snide remarks about how I was hurt. Relatively few. Most of them from relatives. Oh yeah. Everyone here is a relative.