Yesterday i had an experience that i was not quite expecting, but ended up being quite interesting. About a week and a half ago i was running up the stairs to my room and fell, hard, hitting my knee and my placing a lot of my fall into the left side of my torso.  The hit to my knee was so hard that most of my attention was focused on the shock of the pain.  However a few hours later i started to feel it in my left side.  The next morning i woke up in tons of pain to my left ribs and really realized how hard i hit the stairs when i fell.  I spent the week complaining about it and taking Advil to try to ease my pain.
Then, last night as i was laying down i coughed and felt paralyzed with pain in my left side.  Whatever i just did felt like a muscle tore or something to that painful extent.  I laid for a minute in shock of what i just did and slowly tried to get up.  For the next half an hour i experienced spasms in the left side of my ribs that were so painful i could barely speak when they happened.  I called my mom as i always do when i am in pain or sick, and of course giving me the motherly advice i should have expected, she told me to get to the hospital.  I had been dodging going to the doctor over my rib only because i was unfamiliar with the process being a foreigner here.  However after experiencing this pain i knew it was time to go get it checked out.
Lucky for me, 2 of my very worried and kind friends decided to accompany me to the hospital thinking we would make an adventure out of it.  We walked to the hospital and after walking through several empty hospital hallways and many comments about Grey's Anatomy, we made our way to the emergency area,  I filled out some paper work and waited to be seen,  I didn't think it would take too long because there were only a few people in front of me, but this proved to be false.  We waited as every name was called, including the names of people who weren't even in the room.  The 3 of us sat growing impatient and tired as it was 2 in the morning.  Finally they called my name and i sprung with excitement,
We walked back and in a small room we went.  I figured they would do a physical exam on my ribs, and especially after seeing how much pain i was in and the sensitivity level of my ribs they would x-ray me.  This proved to be false as well.  Instead, i told the doctor what had happened between the falling and the spasms and she nodded at me and asked me to lift my shirt and point to where my pain was.  I showed her the wide region of where my pain extended and told her how when it hurt it sometimes made me feel short of breath.  She nodded her head and she looked at me and stated, "rib injuries take about 6 weeks to heal,"  This wasn't anything new to me,  She said she would be back with some pain medicine and would send me on my way as she walked out of the room.  I saw with my confusion for a second and looked toward my friend, "Is that...it?" i said to her,  We were both confused by her lack of serious attention she provided me,  There were no x-rays, not even a physical exam.  How did she know there wasn't a rib popping out? Or that my spleen didn't burst?  These were all things i learned were my options given the symptoms of my pain thanks to google and of course WebMD.  She came back in the room and handed me some pain medicine and rushed me out of the room. That was one of the moments in my whole abroad experience i missed the U.S. the most.