Sadly, I have not noticed that I possess any cool powers yet. I’ll be sure to keep you updated.
Anyway, just came from getting my back adjusted. I asked my chiropractor if I could have a copy of my x-ray, so I could scan it and show everyone on my LJ friends list how weird my spine looks. I got a negative on that (well, technically I could, but it sounds like more trouble that it’s worth), but he showed me the technician’s report on the x-ray.
And holy fuck, I AM MISSING A RIB. I have twelve ribs on my left side and only eleven on my right! AHHHHH!!! I am like, some crazy monster creature! My spine is messed up because the right side of a couple of my vertabrae aren’t fully formed and apparently that extended to the rib, which just never formed at all!
How come no one told me this til I was 26 years old, that’s what I want to know? What other things could be wrong with me that no one bothered to tell me? Now I am all paranoid!
Have you noticed some new man hanging around? Last time it worked the other way (rib taken from man to make woman), but maybe they’re trying something new this time.
Welcome to the mutant club! I’ll see your missing rib and raise you a third breast. (TMI to follow.)
See, when my daughter was born, I decided to nurse her. It takes a couple days for the milk to come in. The day mine did, I found, in the shower, an enormous lump under my left arm. Scared the crap out of me, and I all but ran to the doctor’s office, thinking my gawd, what if it’s breast cancer and I die and leave this poor baby with no mother??
Doc gave me a thorough exam and then explained to me that functional breast tissue can occur anywhere from under the arm to pretty near the belly button… and I had a little extra breast tissue under my arm that had filled up with milk. He said the swelling would go down in a few days, when my OTHER two breasts became less engorged.
(This is why, when you do a breast self-exam, you’re told to feel under your arms, BTW.)
He didn’t, but I doubt it. At least the way I’m missing my rib, I know it’s not. The congenital abnormality in my spine is extremely unusual. I’ve had two doctors x-ray my spine and both have said they’ve never seen anything like it before.
I am special.
I was all excited for a second, until I remembered that my dental x-rays usually turn out okay. Damn.
I had a friend in college who had one fewer vertabrae than normal. She was on the short side, and liked to gripe about how God had stiffed her of two inches.