It was probably a good thing that I did go and see the doc; I'm pretty sure that my wrist would have actually broken off if I'd put off the visitation for much longer. Following an exciting weekend when I'd been seat racing/punching a brick wall/cagefighting an angry bear on LSD riding an alligator, my wrist was starting to display some somewhat unsavoury symptoms. First off, it had swollen up and gone black. "Hmm", I thought.
Then I started to get shooting pains up my arm every timed I moved it. "Hmm", I thought.
The final symptom was the GRINDING SOUND COMING FROM MY WRIST EVERY TIME I FLEXED MY FINGERS. And I don't just mean a little creaking sensation. I literally mean grinding. It was like somebody using a loudspeaker to magnify the sound of them using a cheesegrater to castrate Michaelangelo's David while listening to the fingernails-on-a-blackboard voice of Gnarles Barkley singing 'Crazy' remixed with the CD of The Best 100 Windmill Sounds... Ever! Continuing the theme of inappropriate similes, it also felt like a bunch of little indians were playing tug of war with razorwire inside my precious precious left arm. Conclusion: it hurt like a cunt.
So we went to the doctor. Boy, what a guy. That Doctor sure was a genius; you could tell just by the way he looked and the way he comported himself. He looked a bit like what you'd get if you took that rotten evil corpse guy from The Mummy (John Hannah), set fire to him, put out the fire with a dusty carpet-beater, then threw him in a peat-bog for a century and a half. He had the air of a man who has seen and cured every kind of illness ever known to mankind a thousand times before and is now so good at his job that he doesn't even have to think about it and has thus taken up heroin to pass his time. Or opium. Or shrooms. Some kind of hallucinogen anyway, because I am pretty sure that he was high the entire time. He never really acknowledged me, just stared into empty space for our entire conversation, and his eyes had a disconnected futility that told me that the lights may be on, but not only was nobody home, the entire building had been abandoned years ago and was now inhabited by a couple of crackhead hoboes.
Of course, there's a good chance he thought he was just trippin' and imagining our entire conversation. That's a distincy possiblity: there were plenty of longggggg gaps of silence when I stared at him and he stared into space and I drew another ten seconds closer to my eventual death. Or, due to the adrenaline gland he'd just consumed, his retinas and earlobes had detatched and he really couldn't see us and the fact that his drug addled crazy words just happened to make sense in the context of our conversation was just a massive coincidence. I could believe that. And if it's true, then I really really don't trust the pills he gave me for the "tendonitis" disease that he told me I had. The pills are called DICOLFLEX RETARD 100mg (not a good start there; sounds like something you'd give a mental to increase his penis size), and they're small and brown and suspicious. And according to the documentation, they also cause the following possible side effects:
- Stomach pain
- Indigestion or heartburn
- Constipation
- Bleeding in the stomach or intestine
- Vomiting or shitting blood
- Headaches
- Dizziness
- Drowsiness or fatigue
- Disturbance of taste, vision, hearing, sensations
- Sleepnessness
- Anxiety or confusion
- Depression
- Skin problems
- Hair loss
- Blood disorders
- Liver disorders
- Kidney problems
- Mouth Ulcers
- Becoming more sensitive to light
- Acute inflammation of the pancreas
- Severe abdominal pain
- Water retention
- Diarrhoea
- Nausea or vomiting
- Swollen tongue
- Swelling
- Breathing difficulties
- Other symptoms not listed above may also occur
Thanks a lot, Doc. Although that does pose an interesting question: did the drug company garner those side effects from a whole group of people over a prolonged period of testing, or is there one really unfortunate son of a bitch lying in a hospital bed somewhere who got all those symptoms AT THE SAME TIME? That's an interesting question. Actually, no it's not.
Well, after the NHS had failed me by providing me with Dr Demento there, I decided to seek the advice of the only other univerally trustworthy source of medical advice in the world: THE INTERNET. After a long period of hard research, I found out a lot about tendonitis, which apparently IS the condition I have. So perhaps the doc wasn't just a junkie, he was one of those wise junkies who make really good guesses. Like House.
Tendonitis is a condition that affects, in my case, the tendons of the wrist. Usually these slide around nice and smoothly in their little sheathes. However, when the dreaded TENDONITISO SPIDER bites someone, the sheathes swell up and the smooth egress of said tendons is hampered. The muscles then swell up with the introduction of millions of antibodies. Then the inside of the wrist fills with a pungent pus called "Tendon sap" which has an aroma of sour oysters and bile. This pus then congeals itself into the bloodstream, causing widespread blood clotting and a particulary nasty immuno-deficiency disease called SMAIDS (like AIDS, but with added explosive diarrhoea, the dreaded 'pH 1 acid saliva' and eyeballicular bleeding). This then leads to a coma, a loss of all bodily functions, the alien hand syndrome, and finally bloating, explosion, and death. Thus is the fate of the tendonitis sufferer. Well, sort of. The bit about the sheathes was true at least, and, well, we can only hope that the rest was a falsification (nb: it was).
However, delving deeper, I found some more interesting information on my condition, in particular the following article that fitted my circumstances so perfectly I felt that I just had to include it:
Because it's your free weekend, you're asked to accompany the boy scouts to Moab. You dust off an old hardbody bike then drive seven obnoxious 14-year-olds to Moab in your Suburban. After banging your antique bike down 14 miles of the Porcupine Rim trail trying to keep up with those hyperactive brats, you hurt everywhere. A few days later, most everything is feeling better. But your wrist still hurts, and it goes "scritch, scritch" when you move it.
Hmm. Yes, that is totally applicable to me. Go on, Mr Internet, I pray. We then go on to discuss the various forms of tendonitis:
Most common is "De Quervain's tendonitis" of the thumb extensor tendon. It often follows biking on rough surfaces: gripping the handlebars tightly while multiple shocks slam your wrist.
What? De Quervain's tendonitis? What the fuck is that shit? My wrist is rotting off and they tell me that it's named after some fruity french guy? Why can't my disease be named after somebody cool? Like Dr Von Cancer. Or Vicar Weirdbaby Anencephaly. Or The Right Honourable Lord Leukemia. They had cool names and thus they had wicked diseases that everyone loves. But De Quervain? Ewwwww. I feel dirty. HOW DO I CURE MYSELF OF THIS CONDITION? PLEASE TELL ME, INTERNET MAN!!!!
After a few days' rest, begin stretching exercises. Put the joint above and the joint below the painful tendon through their full range of motion. It may help to warm-pack for 10-20 minutes before the stretches. Repeat four times a day. Return to your activities gradually. In particular, avoid the activity that started the tendonitis. It may take 3 to 4 weeks for tendonitis to resolve.
Ok. So what I'm being told here is that I shouldn't do any rowing for three or four weeks, and then only slowly let myself build back into it. Ok. Ok. Yes, good. Ok. I understand. Ok. Ok. Ok. Good. Unfortunately, we might have to be a touch more conservative with that time estimate. 3/4 weeks is too long. How does, uh, A DAY sound, before I go off to Ampsterdam for an intensive 8 day long rowing camp? Solidly doing the activity that caused my wrist to be this fucked up in the first place for FIVE HOURS A DAY? How does that sound, eh? Good? Sounds good to you? Good. Goood. Because that's what's going to happen.
I'm going to die, aren't I?
WHAT KIND OF CRUEL GOD GIVES ME THIS CONDITION TWO DAYS BEFORE THE MOST STRENUOUS ROWING CAMP EVER? I'LL TELL YOU WHAT KIND OF GOD: A CUNT OF A CRUEL CHRISTIAN GOD. I bet this was cos I made fun of his mate Mohammed. Man, I wish I was Buddhist. That buddha never does any of this malicious shit to his minions. Plus, he's fat and cool, like your favourite uncle who later turns out to be a child molester but never ever made a move on you so he's still alright in your book.
I have to get up at three in the morning tomorrow. I should have gone to bed about four hours ago. Maaaan.
Comedy Mohammed No. 18:
So yes, I shaln't be blogging until I get back on the fifteenth. Have fun without me. Keep me updated with news. I love you all. But not you.
You know, I just had a deep thought. If, during these eight days, I am somehow killed, these will be my last words. I'd better make them good ones.
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