Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: marvel, omnibus, x-statix

How A Marvel Omnibus Landed A Man In Hospital

Ouch. User tobehulkinued2 posted on the Marvel Masterworks forum;

I started on the Byrne Omnibus, but got impatient with the team-up books that are at the front of the book. Now, I'm a fairly athletic guy, so I put the Fantastic Four omnibus down, grabbed the remote with my right hand to switch channels and at the same time stretched out my left hand and grabbed the X-Statix Omnibus back-hand and at a weird angle and lifted it up. That did it. I cried out as I felt sharp pain up and down my left arm and left side as all my muscles there seemed to be pulled at once.  My wife, a nurse practitioner, came running when she heard the scream. "What happened?," she asked. I explained that I thought I pulled a bunch of muscles at once while lifting a graphic novel and now my left arm felt kind of tingly. This made her very concern.

"You think you pulled all your muscles lifting a book?" she asked.
"Well, it's a very heavy book," I said.
"Look, you're over 50, you have high cholesterol, you have a sharp pain up and down your left side and you're feeling numbness. We're going to the hospital to get you checked out!"
"I really think I just pulled some muscles, but it does hurt like the dickens. It really is a very heavy book."
"We're going. You'll get checked out. We'll be back by the end of the game."

So we get to the ER and I tell my story to the nurse. "I think we need to get you checked out," he said. "I don't think you'd pull that many muscles lifting a book." "It's a really heavy book," I said.

They gave me an EKG, blood tests, and chest X-ray, which all checked out. Still, the ER doctor admitted me over night so that I could be seen by a cardiologist the next day. "It is not usual for someone to pull muscles like that just from lifting a book," he explained. "But it really is a very heavy book!" I tried to explain. No dice. So all night long, every couple of hours, they woke me up to take more blood tests, take my blood pressure, give me several more EKGs and hooked my up for an IV in case I needed one. They gave me a shot to thin my blood and another shot to make sure my blood didn't clot. Then they took more blood tests.

It turned out that the Cardiologist had clinic all day Monday, and more urgent patients to see while rounding, so he didn't show up to my room until Monday evening. When he finally got to me, over 24 hours since I entered the ER, he took a quick look at my chart and at all my tests that showed absolutely no sign of a heart attack or angina. "Tell me about this book you lifted," he said. I told him that it collected nearly 50 issues in an oversized format, and that I foolishly tried to back-hand grab and lift it at a strange angle. I said that it had to be over 5 pound and of a large, awkward size. My wife was there and backed me up, explaining that she had to move it off the bed when she got home Sunday evening. "It has to be over 7 pounds," she said. (Amazon lists it at 7.8 pounds). "You should always be square with those and lift them with both hands," the Cardiologist said, and sent me home.

It is a really heavy book. Be warned folks. Marvel Omnibuses can put you in the hospital, even if they don;t fall down on top of you.

Talking of which, this is how I believe I will die.

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