When you feel like your fingers ... have been slammed in car doors!
The old body has been giving me gyp for months now. My right index finger and thumb are tingling and get downright painful if I lean on my arm at any point. My upper arms (both sides) ditto. I've already referenced the Leg Mutinies I've suffered En Disney and I think I've spoken of my treacherous back once or twice. If I were a car it would be time for a new one.
Most recently I started getting twinges from Mr Back, the little finger on my left hand has started locking up and the bone where that finger joins the hand is quite tender so I decamped for Doc Rubberglove's House of Pain to see what could be done in terms of a quick paint job to hide the rust and some sponge cake to stop the differential knocking in corners1.
Doc Rubberglove is in new digs these days, having made so much money ministering to the sick that he could afford to not have to share a roof with a pediatrician. He's been there about a year now and I've been to see him there three or four times so the first problem was I forgot how to get there, got lost and had to resort to the GPS. The GPS punished me for not using it in months by resolutely refusing to find a signal until I had spotted something vaguely familar enabling me to switch from dead-reckoning navigation2 to piloting3 and get on the right road a good four seconds before the GPS began smugly telling me I was right. I later punished it by driving home so circuitously while ignoring its strident cries of alarm that by the time it had re-planned the route I was already off the re-planned plan so it had to start again. AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Where was I?
Oh right. On a previous visit to get a shot to make my alergies go away Doc Rubberglove had given me the "quick fix" version and told me to pick up the "long term" version from a local pharmacy and come back. This I had done, so one of the items on the agenda was shoot me full of slow-release cortiosone, for that is what the "long term" version was.
It transpired I had in fact got about five doses in that vial, and Doc Rubberglove said I should be able to use it next year if I store it correctly, so bonus, I suppose.
Of course, cortisone shots are a medical joke. You get one in your leg to fix your knee and your elbow feels ten times better while the knee now hurts more on account of the needlestick. Also, get one in your arm and it feels okay until you get about five feet from your car, when it suddenly feels like you've been kicked in the shoulder by a bad-tempered horse. I've alluded to this very phenominominomimumum before many times, and to the proper way to bear up under the pain, which is to stumble around crashing into things while clutching the arm and wailing "why me?" in a manly fashion until either the pain subsides or you are run over.
Doc said he'd stick my left arm and perhaps that would help the problem with the little finger. Then he had a brainwave and said that he'd give me a second dose directly into the hand, a plan to which I foolishly agreed.
The arm jab went about as usual with me bravely suffering the pain with only one or two light whimpers. The hand jab was an entirely new level of Medico Perfidy altogether.
First came the freezing spray.
"It works by evaporation" Doc Rubberglove giggled, spritzing it liberally over my hand.
"So I gather" I giggled back. "Some sort of ether formulation by the smell."
"Hold still" he responded, waving a small hypodermic in the air. "I'm going in!"
"CRIKEY THAT"S PAINFUL" I shrieked, biting my other hand as the doctor had apparently neglected to offer me the customary squash ball before driving the needle into what felt like the main pain generation gubbins of my hand.
"Hold still!" he reassured me in playful, snarling tones. "I'll just change my grip so I can squeeze the plunger with increased ferocity! There we go!"
"ARGH! ARGH! bleeping bleep of a bleep!"
"I need more leverage! I might be hitting bone here! HOLD STILL!"
Eventually it was over. Not only was my finger still not working, my entire hand felt like it had been run over with a steamroller. Result.
"I want more freezing spray before you do that again" I snarled.
"Freezing the skin won't decrease the pain unfortunately" the good doctor sniffed dismissively. "This we just proved, advancing the cause of medical science."
"I mean to take the stuff nasally next time" I riposted. "Kindly have some decanted into a suitable insuflator before putting me to the question next time."
I drove home one-handed, and got about halfway home before the horse kicked me.
Well, played, Doc. Well played.
No comments:
Post a Comment