Not minimizing your experience -- broken c-bones, while a "badge of honor", are more of a pain the ace than they are the upper chest -- but you DID get off easy.

Mine, there was no 'get up and fix', no 'maybe ride in a couple days'; I knew immediately, when I COULDN'T get up, that I was in for it. (BTW -- commuting TO work, October 22, 2008, 815 AM; my front disc overpowered my soon-to-be-changed, too-weak fork spring, and dead-sailored me)

It took the abysmal VA ER crew 5 hours to tell me what I knew in less than 10 minutes: "Yep, it's broken." With the sharp peak of bone threatening to push through your skin, you kinda get that idea, even through three morphine shots. What they DIDN'T catch was that it was broken in five places!

This was a Wednesday; Thursday I was back in the VA, raising hell, and Friday I was in the Ortho's office. Monday -- I was in surgery, getting the steel plate that STILL doesn't set off a metal detector!

A week on Vicodin, then changed to oxycodone for the remaining 6 I was off work -- I could do little but take walks in the brisk, bracing Indiana November weather.

The day I was released to return to work, I was back on the bike -- then, a week later, we got hit with the worst ice storm of the region for the last 20 years.

You will do well, m'friend.