Jared vs. The Universe.

Despite all of the positive events taking place in my life as of late, the universe has also tried its hardest to make me give up.

Not today, bud-day!

First of all, I had to deal with bronchitis for over two and a half weeks. That was no cake walk, rest assured. Between all of the hacking, coughing and garbled vocalizations, I nearly lost my head in a freak explosion. I'm sure my liver didn't appreciate all of the medication I was pumping through my system, either. I'm just now feeling somewhat better and can breathe almost normally. When you have asthma like I do, bronchitis is practically a death sentence. Imagine how difficult it was not to cough like a rabid hyena at my new job; to stifle and silence a gooey rumble trying to escape my lungs. But wait, there's more!

Towards the end of my second week of coughing up alien slime globules, my coccyx (aka the 'tail' bone) began aching.

The pain started as a dull, almost unnoticeable ache. Steadily, it grew more sharp and acute. Whenever I sat down, if not in the proper angle, my coccyx would feel as if it were caught in a vice clamp. I've acquired a special pillow to help ease the pain (I'm sitting on it right now, actually), but the pain has yet to subside. It's not like it could get any worse, am I right?

Wrong.

I woke up yesterday morning with an extremely agonizing pain in my neck. For those of us that grew up in the South, this sort of pain is called a 'crick'. This is no ordinary crick in the neck, though. This tends to happen to me a few times a year. The pain is nearly debilitating. Only through sheer will and determination am I able to function. My right arm has shooting pain, radiating from my right shoulder down to my fingertips. This fluctuates with numbness and eerie tingling. I can't turn my head. To look to my left and right, I have to do what I refer to as a Batman* turn. The base of my skull must have a dozen razor blades lodged securely in it, because that's exactly what it feels like!

My neck! My back! At this point, I better register for a Life Alert system before I take a spill in the floor and can't get up.

You know what, though? I'm not going to just give up. I'm determined to enjoy my new position and work through the pain. I will show up every day, pain or not. I will inch ever closer to being a librarian. Fate, the universe, god, whatever you want to call it... it can't keep me down.

Now I'm just waiting for the next roadblock or injury to occur. I've never broken a bone (that I know of), so I'm most certainly overdue.

*A Batman turn refers to the 1989 film starring Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader. Because of the way his suit was designed, the cowl he wore during filming was extremely stiff. As such, Keaton couldn't turn his neck. Instead, he had to turn his whole body when looking around. This actually added to the off-kilter demeanor of Batman, making him more mysterious and creepy in the process.