Five Enormous Doses of Friday Painkillers
You may point and laugh, people, but I am currently lying in my bed, a mere sneeze, twitch or yawn away from unspeakable agony. I fucked my back playing football on Monday and at the moment any kind of movement is like a wild gamble. Do it wrong, and my lower back spasms to extent that it can take me ten minutes to focus on the individual muscles one by one and try and relax them. It’s bloody crap.
On the plus side, my doctor has prescribed me Diazepam which, according to the Daily Mail, will turn me into a jobless, benefit-scrounging, teenage single mother by the evening. I was offered opiates as well, but turned them down on the basis that I would snigger about it too much. Also, I am not fond of painkillers to begin with: I prefer to actually know what’s going on if I can. I want to be able to know how much it hurts and consequently have a reasonable idea when it’s all getting better.
The other annoying thing is that I literally cannot do anything. When you’ve got other illnesses you can at least potter in the garden for an hour here or make some phonecalls there or do some video editing or whatever the hell else, but I can’t even sit at a desk for more than twenty minutes before everything starts clenching up, so I am quite literally confined to lying either on the bed or the living room floor, or hobbling about the house to try and loosen up. I have watched every shitty movie known to man in the last three days.
You know what was a real disappointment though? Neighbours. And Home and Away to an extent, but mostly Neighbours. Even seven or eight years after leaving uni I could still comfortably slip back into Neighbours – face it, the plot moves at an absolutely glacial pace – but this week I haven’t had the patience. It’s a bit gutting – like I’ve finally lost touch with an old childhood friend. Maybe the pain in my back has eroded my patience for this kind of thing.
Anyway, while you’re off gallivanting, spare a thought for me, watching American Pie: the Wedding or some other such total horse manure, and unable to even drag myself out for a bloody pint – anaesthetic beer, mmmmm! And what better way to kick off your Friday fun than by mocking the cripple. You heartless bastards.
1. Most pain you’ve ever experienced.
2. Coolest sounding drug you’ve been prescribed.
3. Worst thing you’ve ever watched whilst off work sick.
4. Most innocuous injury you’ve ever had a ton of sympathy for.
5. Most painful affliction you’ve ever had which seems too lame for sympathy.
This Friday I have some mid-90s acoustic versions of stuff to share with you.
Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield – My Drug Buddy (Acoustic)
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Supergrass – Caught by the Fuzz (Acoustic)
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Fun Lovin’ Criminals – Scooby Snacks (Acoustic)
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Pearl Jam – Black (Live Acoustic)
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Juliana Hatfield is a fox. She was a big teenage crush of mine. Mmm…
1. I don’t know. Trapping my little finger in a fire door or something. I had heartburn the other night that woke me up. That was unpleasant.
2. I can’t remember what my asthma stuff or my weapons-grade prescription anti-histamines are actually called, so they can’t be that cool.
3. Any of those daytime property shows. Fucking hate them. And all the antique shows can fuck off too.
4. A girl I knew had her belly-button pierced, but they took too much skin between the navel and the piercing above, so she couldn’t stand up straight without exruciating agony.
5. Probably that heartburn the other night. And I was out of Pepto Bismol.
1. Last time I fucked my back I got really bad sciatica. Anyone who has not experienced this has no idea how fucking awful it can be. I honestly couldn’t find any position which wasn’t extremely uncomfortable, and then to move from that position, even in the slightest, caused the most excruciating agony I have ever experienced, and no way to get away from it. Horrible.
2. Being offered opiates by my doctor this week was rather fun. It was all I could do not to turn into Beavis & Butthead.
3. Some hero dog-related US daytime cable movie. So bad it couldn’t even make the cinema. Truly excruciating, but there honestly was nothing better to be found anywhere.
4. Playing football I get all sorts of purple bruises and livid, bloody gash marks from studs and collisions and stuff like that. They look really dramatic, but are seldom more than just a bit tender for a couple of days (yawn in advance for anyone tedious/predictable enough to make stud innuendos).
5. Back pain. Honestly, it makes you sound like a complete moaning lazy-arse, but when it’s bad it is absolute fucking torture.
1) An abscessed tooth from 8pm till 8.31am one night. It was getting to string on the door time
2) Psilocybe Mexicana by a bongo man at a stone circle, it wasn’t a written prescription.
3) A Box set of Barney the fucking purple Dinosaur – 3 year olds choice not mine
4) Nettle sting.
5) Ripped off toenail, I didn’t realise until the alcohol had worn off just how much it really did hurt, otherwise I would have thrown myself on the floor and screamed earlier.
Oooh, I’ve had an abscess before – I knocked a tooth out, and when they pushed it back in they must have trapped some muck up there, because the bastard developed an abscess within a month or so. That really was fucking sore.
Oh and I’m off work with Man Flu which is officially the worse ailment in the history of mankind so stop your moaning about a back twinge..sheesh
1. When I broke my wrist. I was 15, and it didn’t hurt so bad until they put on the cast. But that night it began to swell inside the cast. Fuck me that hurt.
2. 4,5α-epoxy-14-hydroxy-3-methoxy-17-methylmorphinan-6-one. Great stuff.
3. Apocalypse Now. With a high fever. I was totally “in country,” man. I was there.
4. Paper cuts. Just thinking about that little slice feeling makes me woozy.
5. I once completely wrenched my neck by lifting my head to look at the bedside clock. And my wife tore a ligament in her wrist while tying her shoes.
1. Fracturing my collarbone playing hockey hurt like fuck. Having the 2 jumpers and jacket put on me to keep me warm before the hospital hurt more and then not being able to move in any way without it hurting was also a problem. Top it off with only being able to sleep on your back and you have the worst kind of 6/7 weeks of pain imagineable.
2. I never remember the name of drugs. The worst drugs I got were for another hockey injury though. They used me as a guinea pig to test a new drug designed to combat arthritis. After a week of these pills I needed further pills to stop the horrible stomach cramps that the previous pills had created.
3. Ce-Lo vs Chris Brown on MTV.
4. The cut on my hand I picked up on Tuesday night
5. Astrorturf burns.
1. A kidney infection – you can’t stand up properly without feeling like you are ripping your insides in two, plus you hurl a lot and the straining is a bitch!
2. Nothing really – but a doctor who looked like he was 10 was determined that my ailment was to do with depression/stress. Had i not been so mad at the patronising little shit i would have held out for the Vallium i reckon he was going to offer me. Although i have tried it before and it turns you into a total mong..
3. I had to take a sickie after a Christmas night out once and spent the whole day on the sofa watching pantomimes with former soap opera stars… I urge anyone to prepare for this in advance and have the remote handy. I was stuck, it was the ultimate punishment for being so pathetic!
4. Bruising aswell – i bruise so so easily that i often look like i have had an encounter with a moving bus – but they don’t hurt, they just look dramatic
5. I damaged my heels when i was younger by jumping off my top bunk onto the concrete floors – they were all cracked and chipped, but apparently there is nothing that you can do so i had no stookie, nothing. i just missed PE for ages and walked really funny. No one felt sorry for me…
1. My appendix exploded and then developed gangrene. The surgeon who did the surgery told me that they usually give people their appendix in a jar, but they couldn’t find enough of mine.
2. Morphine.
3. Yu-Gi-Oh.
4. Scalp wound in high school. I ran into a rather knobbly brick wall while trying to escape a beating from a friend. It didn’t hurt too much, but it bled profusely and I got off cross-country practice.
5. Ingrown toenails. And my bastard friends kept treading on them.
Er, paging Mr. Mule, I think you’ve found your soul-mate!
(Shonagh that is, not AnotherDave)
I was worried for a second there.
Well I don’t want to be narrow-minded, you two might make a lovely couple.
1 Most pain you’ve ever experienced.
Getting my back waxed. Anyone who knows me knows just how hirsute’ I am. My mate Baillie invited me to stay with him for two weeks in Bermuda where he works but said he “didn’t want to be out on the beach with the one and only hariy backed freak on the island” or something to that effect. Not wanting to miss the island fun I obliged. It was absolutely horrendous. Tears were involved. Then came the cliched comment from the beautician…”Now you know how we women feel”. Rage building up in me I lifted my tear stained face from the pillow and snarled “Have you ever seen a woman with a back like THIS!?”. That shut her up. The idiot. Anyway – it came out in red plague-like pocks for two weeks and only cleared up on the 2nd day of my holiday. Fun. I hate Baillie.
2. Coolest sounding drug you’ve been prescribed.
Co-Codamol is the only drug I have been prescribed apart from penicillin. And all the name ‘penicillin’ does is remind of homework and erasers. Actually, more specifically, the pencil that you got replacement lead for and clicked to push it out. I LOVED them.
3. Worst thing you’ve ever watched whilst off work sick.
Probably Kevin Costner’s The Postman.
4. Most innocuous injury you’ve ever had a ton of sympathy for.
Banging my head as a child, being taken to hospital wailing and stopping when I got a lolly. Nothing wrong with me.
5. Most painful affliction you’ve ever had which seems too lame for sympathy
My painful affliction is also back pain. I empathise, Matthew. It does deserve sympathy but it gets me FUCK ALL.
1) i find pins and needles really painful, oh which reminds be of a story, i once was, i was about 19, asleep and sitting crossed legged when someone knocked on the front door, i went to get up, had a massive dose of Pins and Needles and fell over right onto my face and bust my nose…..funny noe!
2) none, but i did used to steal my dad’s morphine and this other pain killer that tasted like ginger beer…..both were fucking awesome!
3)Doctors……awful, best thing Quincy!
4) Life
5) none that i can think of, my brother once got his foreskin stuck behind his hard on helmet for 4 days before he went to A&E. in A&E, they had to use some gel to ease the pain before yanking it!
1. Probably the headache during glandular fever. Opening your eyes was the hardest thing imaginable because it hurt so much.
2. “Jasmine” a contraceptive pill marketed solely at underage teenagers. I was 21 at the time, so I have no idea why I got it.
3. Jeremy Kyle. It was fine when the mentals were on the other side of the pond, but now they all seem to have Yorkshire accents it’s highly depressing.
4. Probably orienteering related impressive looking bramble induced flesh wounds. I was taken to one side at school swimming lesson after a particularly hideously infested forest in Wales, and the teacher asked me if everything was alright at home. The answer that I was racing through a brambly forest in Wales seemed to cause more concern than the original levels.
5. The stiff legs after a marathon. I had to get Rob to help me step up kerbs, but it really was too painful without the help. My legs just wouldn’t bend anywhere.
i went to get up, had a massive dose of Pins and Needles and fell over right onto my face and bust my nose…..funny noe!
Probably pretty funny at the time, too. To be fair.
1. When I was about 15 I was sitting watching saturday tv, minding my own business when I was suddenly hit by the most excruciating pain in my stomach, I was bent double and fell onto the floor where I proceeded to wriggle around and moan. My mum found me there and ran next door to get a neighbor, they both grabbed me, helped me into a car and drove to the nearest hospital with me screaming in pain, once there I struggled onto the ground where I was sick and blacked out.
I remember waking up on a hospital bed where a doctor was informing my mum that they were going to hurry me through to an operating theatre to get my appendix removed, it was at this point that an older doctor walked up to me and pressed down on my belly, this resulted in me doing a very load fart and suddenly feeling much better. No Joke, that is the most pain I have ever been in.
2. Calpol
3. I watch, what most people would call, a lot of rubbish most of the time. A Location Location Location marathon on more4 is my idea of an ace time.
4. Banjo wrist.
5. I got my finger stuck in a bowling ball once, it was really quite painful but sympathy was somewhat lacking.
My mom had really bad back trouble for ages. She used one of those beanbag things you heat in the mircowave – it helps relax the muscles and relieve the pain.
You know, in case the proscription drugs aren’t cutting it and you want advice from strangers on the internet.
A Location Location Location marathon on more4 is my idea of an ace time
You have no idea how far you have just fallen in my estimation.
I got my finger stuck in a bowling ball once
Haha! Estimation back to normal levels!
Dylan – Are you really trying to say that you don’t find Kirstie Allsopp even marginally alluring?
She’s got nice lips. Fact.
so instead of a location location location marathon, you actually mean a wanking wanking wanking marathon?
1. Dislocating my knee. Twice. Pneumonia isn’t much fun either.
2. Try not to take em if I can help it, and I can never pronouce em or remember em anyway.
3. Probably Oprah or Dr. Phil or some other philanthropical wannabe. (It took me a couple of minutes before I realised there’s an unintentional pun in there. Har har har.)
4. I barely got any sympathy when I stuffed my knee.
5. Stubbing my toe. Fuck that hurts.
1. Food poisoning was fucking miserable. I was in a stark soviet style dorm in Poland, too weak to be sick, too sick not to be, freezing cold and stinking.
Good times.
The next day I moved to a proper hostel and watched the directors cut of Apocolypse Now and it was fucking rad.
2. Co-codomol. I had surgery earlier this year and tried to get some morphine but the doc wasn’t having any of it.
3. Kilroy. Or Jeremy Kyle. *shudder.
4. Hangovers, definitely. I’m *shit* when I’m hungover (PS. Dylan, hi, i was rinsed on friday but it was fun eh!)
5. Stubbing a toe. OUCH.
Who is this Mr Mule?
And is he single?
Real, proper food poisoning is pretty rough actually. I’d been using that as an excuse for a day off work about once a year for a while before I actually got the real thing. Fucking hell, I don’t jest about it now – when it hits you it really fucking hits you.
I am delighted to answer the page. I was wondering why the mulephone was flashing!
1) I took fell running too literally and fell down the side of the Pentlands, landing on my arse and completely fucking up my coccyx bone, which, of all the ridiculous things I’ve done to my body through years of dangerous sports, has to be the single most painful. Fucking awful.
2) Nothing too cool actually, but when I broke my heels they gave me cocodomol, which I gave back to them, saying it was about as much use to me as blue smarties.
3) The worst thing I’ve watched when off sick is my dear lovely friend Sally attempting to clean up my spew off the floor as I took a total whitey due to broken bone induced pain. Poor Sally, the spew just kept on comin’.
4) To this day I have a large lump on my head, which is the result of me being hit in the head by a golf ball when I was 12. My best mate was a good golfer, had a driver in his hand and was only ten yards away. I thought he was having a practice swing and went to pick up a ball. SMACK! Unconscious mule! I awoke to a crowd of about 15 people pissing themselves with laughter. Then they all felt bad when they saw the lump and I got a lot of sympathy. I looked like the ball was actually in my head.
5) 2 years ago I was beating the crap out of my not so little brother, threw him over my shoulder onto the sofa, then followed up to deliver the ‘big elbow’ finishing move. The little bastard brought his knees up to defend himself and I broke two ribs. That hurt like fuck, especially when sneezing or coughing, which pretty much had me in tears every time.
I have about another ten stories of broken mule bones, but I’ll save them for another day.
Matthew, are you pimping me off old boy? Incidentally, I am in bed today too as I damaged my ligaments when we went running on Saturday!
I didn’t actually think Mr Mule would be a real person – i thought that this was a reference to my limited dalliance into the world of drug use…
I would be pimping you off if I thought your smashed up cadaver was actually worth anything on the open market. Apparently not, though.
You swine! I may be broken but I’ll be back to full speed soon and will mock you as you sprawl over the grass in Inverleith park, sicking up your breakfast and begging not to run any more!
At that point, you will be forced to concede that my formerly smashed up cadaver has genuine value in an open market system of pimping, and you will be forced to sign me to Pimping, by Toad.
But yes, I am a real person, although the moniker may be connected to drug induced graffiti, so kinda right on both fronts.
Christ. Song, by Toad: Bringing Edinburgh’s Desperate, Alcoholic Singles Together Since 2004.
My life is complete.
You guys so have to let me know the next time you’re running in Inverleith Park. I could do with something to lighten my PhD doom.
for running read cruising
I can’t say I’ve ever noticed a single bod worth cruising in Inverleith. Am I blind?!
1. I won’t point and I won’t laugh as I had a similar back problem a couple of years ago (although not inflicted by a football-related injury) . I couldn’t walk without a constant grimace so I too was prescribed diazepam – oh boy is that good stuff. I went into work the day after taking my first cameron and was sent home on the grounds that I was away with the fairies and of no use to anyone. I on the other hand was enjoying every minute of it, so get them down your neck Matthew, they’re ace – it was only after taking them that I understood why so many housewives got hooked on the stuff back in the 60s.
2. Probably the camerons.
3. I’ve learnt that there’s only so much daytime TV that a person can watch before they go completely insane but there is a certain joy to be had, every now and then, from watching Jeremy Kyle shout at scum. Schadenfraude TV at it’s best.
4. I got knocked down by a lorry when I was 15 – actually it wasn’t the lorry that hit me but the trailer door (it was one of those refrigirated lorries so the door was rather large and heavy). The driver, in all his wisdom, decided that there wasn’t much point closing the trailer door as he was delivering to another shop just round the corner from his first drop-off point. It clearly hadn’t occured to him that, as he went round the corner, the momentum of the lorry would cause the unlocked door to swing open and that’s when it hit me on the back of the head, sending me flying face first into the pavement – all I had was a cut on the back of my head (requiring all of three stitches!), grazed hands and a bloody nose. Absolutely no sign of concussion. And for that, I got so much sympathy, loads of gifts, get well cards, visits from concerned family, friends and neighbours and on top of that I managed to wangle a whole week off school!
5. Cramp in my freezing cold feet in the dead of night. Jumping up and down swearing at four in the morning never gets the “oh you poor thing, are you ok? Let me massage your feet back into life” response. It’s more like “oh for fuck sake keep the noise down, it’s stupid o’clock”.
1. Breaking my arm, I suppose, but I was three and can only vaguely remember it. My right arm is now all mangled and makes people go ‘ew’ when they look at it, but weirdly it’s actually better than my left which I can bend the opposite way to a certain degree. Also, I can now dislocate my right arm ‘on demand’, so that’s exciting.
2. I have never been prescribed any drugs. The last time I tried to buy more than 1 pack of ibuprofen in Boots, they totally refused, and yet they let my friend get away with it. I think I look quite depressed, is why.
3. The awesomeness that is countdown? Channel 5 always has awful made-for-TV natural disaster-related movies on.
4. I don’t think this has ever happened.
5. Mosquito allergy. Until I get bitten by one, and then everyone’s all ‘Wow, I thought you were joking.’
for running read cruising
Cottaging?
Mosquito allergy does sound quite crap, I’ll agree.
No Dylan, I think that when he used the word running he may actually have meant, er… what’s that word again.. oh, yes, running.
I got bitten on my hand a few weeks ago and it swelled up so much it looked like I had a small football on the end of my arm. I went to the pharmacy to get some antihistamines and the pharmacist was all ‘Oh, ew.’ I also got bitten on the forehead, which, in retrospect was pretty funny.
Shit, have we just accidentally started a running/cruising/cottaging/dogging club for Inverleith park? That wasn’t on my to-do list for today.
see the cats out the bag…..fitness my arse ha ha
Worryingly, it seems to have been distorted into some combination of fitness and arses.
I’m not playing any more.
have we just accidentally started a running/cruising/cottaging/dogging club for Inverleith park?
Not another one?! Sheesh!
i doubt you’re allowed a joint membership Dylan
Dylan won’t be interested – it involves actual exercise.
The only two forms of exercise he’s interested in both involve repetitive movements of the right wrist.
one slow the other fast?
Actually, pretty similar, if you’ve ever seen him in a drinking mood.
1. Probably one of the many times my shoulder has dislocated. I think the time it happened while skiing on a difficult run, clambering over my flatmate in a vain attempt to fix it myself (possible, but needs a flat surface…), getting stretchered off the mountain (bounce bounce), then being forced to hold it in extremely painful positions while the doc tried to take x-rays (you moved, so we’ll have to do that one again). Then he moved it in a sort-of taichi move and it popped back in.
2. I was prescribed Orlistat for a few weeks. Not an experience I will repeat.
3. I remember watching a fake-documentary thing about a UK smallpox outbreak just as I was coming down with a fairly nasty flu. My dreams really, really sucked after that.
4. I got very minor, exploratory surgery on my shoulder recently, and everyone acted like I might be about to die. Then I went out, had a couple ciders, and quickly lost the power to form coherent words.
5. I used to get really bad mouth ulcers from getting smacked in the face at judo sessions. I couldn’t eat anything vaguely acidic for the following week, but no-one wanted to know.
awe man, Toad. Get well soon! I feel somewhat guilty for enjoying an afternoon of leisure. On that note, I’m gonna answer these 5 friday q’s:
1. Being told by the boy I had a crush on that I walked like a “dude”. That was worse than physical pain.
2. Indocin
3. The Shopping Network. I had watched too many Brady Bunch episodes and all the Planet of the Apes movies and so it was a last resort.
4. I had to wear an eye patch to try and correct my wandering eye and everyone treated me like I had lost my eyesight. It was awesome.
5. I slashed my right ass cheek open with a pair of scissors that were jutting out of my desk rather precariously and had to go to the ER and get 10 stitches. Coincidentally, it was April Fools Day so nobody believed me and everyone laughed…but it hurt like hell!!
Smiley – yup, I’ve had the dislocated shoulder thing. It used to pop out in my sleep, so I’d be in intense pain, in a contorted position and only barely conscious, so it was fucking hard to put right.
J – Apparently there has been an outbreak of people being stabbed in the arse in Glasgow because a/ it’s humiliating as hell and b/ more importantly, it is well known to be non-fatal, so there’s no way you can be done for attempted murder.
1. Breaking my big toe. I was running on a wooden floor in my stocking soles (my granny would’ve been very disappointed) and slipped, careering through the door frame at a rate of knots. Door frame stopped my big toe. I slept with a bag of frozen peas very carefully positioned on my foot that night. I now fear breaking any other bones as that was bloody AGONY.
2. Does Microgynon sound cool? No, didn’t think so.
3. Anything involving that utter, utter cunt Jeremy Kyle. Or The Sullivans. Or The Flying Doctors.
4. When I was much younger I was stung in my mouth by a wasp and my mum was convinced I was going to choke to death when my throat showed signs of minor swelling. I got ice-cream after my tea every night that week and spent the rest of the summer attempting to swallow more of the stripey buggers.
5. Having done little to no exercise for at least a decade I recently decided to have a go on a flatmate’s exercise DVD. I couldn’t bend my knees or sit down for two days due to complaining thighs from over-enthusiastic squats.
Isn’t that arse-slashing thing something associated with soccer hooligans on the continent somewhere?
It’s unlike the weedgies not to think up their own creative forms of assault!
What’s soccer?
There are about four people in Scotland who won’t be offended by that last remark of mine!
Luckily I’m off to Wales for the weekend!
What’s soccer?
A cross between ballet and amateur dramatics as far as I can tell.
It’s not very good, I shouldn’t worry about it.
Really? You should try football. Much better.
1. It’s a close run thing, but probably advanced pleurisy – wrongly diagnosed as pulled muscles at Christmas one year; went on till Easter by which point it was ambulances and hospitals time. Fuck me, it hurts to breathe when your lungs are sticking to your ribcage.
2. I’ve been prescribed codeine-based medicines so many times I’m surprised I’m not in Betty Fords by now. My flatmates were very happy for a while, though.
3. All daytime telly is unremitting shite.
4. Allergic reaction to a wasp sting that puffed my whole face up like a football. My eyes were completely swollen shut, and when my mum tried to disguise my elephant man appearance while she took me to the doctor by putting a pair of sunglasses on, they slid straight off because I didn’t have a bridge on my nose. Lasted for over a week but didn’t hurt at all – loads of sympathy for the poor freak girl though.
5. Any of the invisible ones, predictably enough. Septic wisdom tooth sockets, inner ear infections, my stupid wonky vertebra that goes sideways when it feels like it – if it’s not bleeding or in plaster, people tend to think you’re biting down on that towel because you’re a bit odd, not because it’s the only thing that can stop you screaming out loud.
You are a bit odd though.
Your wasp injury tale is much better than mine. The thought of those sliding sunglasses has made me chortle quite a lot. Sorry.
No, trying to eat wasps in order to gain ice cream still wins for me, although the image in my head isn’t quite as funny.
See? Instant sympathy! Guilty sympathy for laughing at the freak girl, but sympathy nonetheless …
And Matthew – watch your step, sonny jim, or I’ll give you an over-enthusiastic hug at the Docker’s Club next week that will have you writhing in agony on the floor. And not a towel to bite on, either.
1. Sciatica. Spent 2008 laying on the floor.
2. I was also given Diazepam, but they had no effect. Dr. says” take one before you go to sleep” and I was taking 3 @ noon with no effect. Only absolute stillness
3. Soccer
4. Fell out of a tree during a family party @ Grandmas. Small cuts, large drama with unlimited soda and hugs.
5. Sciatica. People who have never had it don’t know it’s a 4 letter word
1. Er…. it involved an abcess in one of my personal areas. Too recently for me to be comfortable joking about it yet I think. Or comfortable sitting.
2. Drugs aren’t cool. Everyone knows that.
3. I can’t remember her name but she was a nurse.
4. A broken little finger from trying to catch a rugby ball – I could barely feel it at all but once you’ve declared a broken bone people seem to take it seriously for some reason.
5. I once had a bruised foot which was incredibly painful but which a gaggle of health care professionals insisted was not serious, even though I couldn’t really walk without yelling out loud.
Get well soon Matthew!
1. Night before the removal of a rather large tumor from the inside of my spine — the morphine/codine/oxycotin/demerol/vicodin/etc. wasn’t working, I was numb from the waist down by then and from the waist up I was wishing I was dead. The prospect of a scalpel slicing open my back and hacking away at me was just the most beautiful thing I could imagine. The nurses said, as I paced the corridors, that childbirth pangs were nothing compared to this.
Yeah, Matthew, take the damn pills. They do more than “mask the pain,” they actually alleviate swelling and allow nerves to grow back together and heal whatever tissue you’ve torn or damaged. They also send messages to the pain receptors in your brain to calm the fuck down and let your body relax enough to send the right chemicals to your back to get it’s shit together. It’s not about knowing what’s wrong in there. (Yes, there’s technical terms for all this, I’m late for work and too lazy to look them up right now. Is there a Dr. in the house?)
2. Lidocaine patches. I mean really… they’re like Michael Caine’s vacation spot or drink or something, all concentrated in these lovely cold-as-hell sticky-on patches that make everything go woozy and warm
3. The Morphine nightmares that play in the middle of the night on the TV that’s not turned on in your room. Wes Anderson must be on Morphine constantly.
4. Nerve conduction test, wherein they take these giant needles and poke you at various places, I mean giant… like 12 inches or so, to measure your nerve responses. I got loads of sympathy for that one. Funny thing was, I was completely numb and didn’t feel a thing, hahaha It horrified M.Chut tho! So yeah, innocuous to me, near-death experience to the average bear.
5. Fell in the bathtub when I was 14 and broke my coccyx which of course you can’t put in plaster or anything and no one believes you and your mother won’t take you to the hospital to have looked at or anything but sure as hell you can’t sit down for about two months and especially at church on hard wooden pews. You want to die. You literally cannot sit still no matter what and to this day my ass is outta whack. Go for it, bring it on. The jokes are right there, for the taking.
Happy Friday. I’ve got three shows to be at and I can’t miss one of them. Wish me luck, darlings! xoxo
Jokes about what, Tart? You being in a church? Fucking hilarious, you’re right.
1. Most pain you’ve ever experienced.
Right now I have a trapped nerve at the top of my spine which has deadened my arm to the point of OK ENOUGH for the past 2 weeks; it’s a bit like pins & needles turned up to 11, but with real pin & needles. I had wrongly diagnosed Gastroenteritis when I was 20 & the prescribed treatment only served to make it 100 times worse by over producing acid in my stomach; a second opinion correctly diagnosed it but this doctor panicked & over prescribed a treatment that saw my stomach acid level crash to such a point that I was bed ridden for a month. The resulting treatment overdid the acid rebuild & as a result I was a proud owner of a stomach ulcer at 21. I’ve had the pleasure of amoebic dysentery, which didn’t hurt so much as confuse my body (specifically my gut) into an aching pulp. Then there was the Lyme Disease recently. Again, not really pain, just a lot of heavy duty fatigue & the possibility of death through kidney collapse hanging over my head. I think the worst pain I’ve ever had, though, & I think I may have mentioned this before, was a startlingly insane blunt pain in my gut that had me passing in & out of consciousness, emptying my contents through both ports, & generally not very well at all. I even rang the NHS Direct for the first time ever as a result & they referred me immediately to the emergency room at the hospital. There, a lady doctor finger banged me up the wrong un & prescribed me some seriously heavy pain killers (can’t remember their name) & some industrial strength laxatives in case it was a compacting of the poo chute. Turned out to be a kink/twist in my lower intestines. It felt like someone was reversing an 18wheeler up my colon.
2. Coolest sounding drug you’ve been prescribed.
I tend to never remember what drugs I have been prescribed. But I have had Diazepam which was the bodily equivalent of threading a needle with fishing line while wearing boxing gloves.
3. Worst thing you’ve ever watched whilst off work sick.
If I’m off ill I tend to sleep through the shite on daytime TV, mainly because I’ve learned it is SHITE. However, Jeremy Kyle, King of the Gypsy Baiters, has to be the most appalling thing ever commissioned. I always seem to switch it on when there are idiot Welsh people moaning about their inbreeding going to pot.
4. Most innocuous injury you’ve ever had a ton of sympathy for.
Football injuries when I was a kid & seriously thinking about pursuing football as a career proper. All down to the same guy, on my own team, following the rule changes that meant players were no longer allowed to call “MINE!” or “MY BALL!” when going for a ball. He always got confused at the point he was supposed to shout “Richard’s Ball!”; as he was a defender & I midfield we were always in the same areas, but he always swung his foot at the wrong moment just after I’d already collected the ball…
(1) Ingrowing toenail (which was removed with no anaesthetic; like, fucking OW!) — direct result of my foot being stamped on.
(2) Hairline fracture of my right ankle — direct result of being in the way of his grass cutting swipe, which missed the ball & sent me pitchwards like a sack of bricks made out of shit.
(3) Hairline fracture & partial dislocation of my left knee cap — this was quite special as it happened in our own penalty box after I stopped running & gestured for him to take the ball. He swung with his whole body & missed, so I moved forward, back heeled the ball &, just as I was turning to punt it down the field, he came 360 on his spin & used his momentum to swing/aim again. Only, this time, he connected with my knee & sent me to the hospital with only 20mins played.
I was out for the season after that, played half of the next season, then ‘retired’ because my knee & ankle would just collapse under me. Totally fucked up any possibility of taking up the game full time. So, maybe not that innocuous after all in hindsight. Still have issues with the knee to this day.
5. Most painful affliction you’ve ever had which seems too lame for sympathy.
I refer you to the answer to question 1.
DC – always a most detailed answer. Have you thought about a job in the civil service?
Been there. Done that. What’s the point of being half arsed when there’s a good yarn to be had at my expense?
No wonder they don’t play football in the states, look at all the injuries. Lawn darts may be safer.
Wow, and not one sexual innenuendo in that entire litany of bodily abuse! DC, are you feeling well today, dearie? I’m worried.
Matthew, I assume you’ve read/seen “Oranges are Not the Only Fruit” Jeanette Winterson? Well, translate that to American and you’ve got my childhood. It’s not pretty, but it is hilarious in retrospect.
Eww, tart. Ginger adolescent lezzeration. Like, eww.
Like, eww? Is that you making a start on the translation, DC?
The Americans lost me ages ago, but I’m not at all surprised by the mosquitos, evil little f**kers. Killed more humans than anything else ever, except for sleep maybe (how bloody lazy is that) so Stephen Fry said.
Sorry got to go get stuck on the sofa by some bloke on the tv.
Yep, mosquitoes are evil little bastards who don’t seem to get the credit they deserve, generally.
Just for completeness, me and my daughter did both get stuck to the sofa. he’s one weird bloke. That was quite cool really
Fer shure
1. A few years ago I had trouble pulling out a metal based spring action sofa bed, so I stuck my foot against it whilst giving it a huge yank, unfortunately the bed shot out ripping my toe nail from the nail bed but not quite taking it off, so it was just stood at a right angle. I refused to go to hospital as I was told they pull the rest out. It eventually came off when a friend accidentally kicked me in the toe. I still feel sick when I think about it. On a side note I was actually heading to a funeral in London so I had to wear my sombre funeral outfit with glittery pink flip flops and a huge bandage.
2. I can never remember the names and am a bit disorganised with prescriptions so never know what’s for what.
3. Years ago I had a virus when we had just moved back to Wales and I got really into Pwbl Y Cwm, it’s a Welsh language soap and I don’t even speak Welsh.
4. I had really bad hayfever one year in Cardiff and got sent home from work, result.
5. My first answer, it’s one of those injuries people don’t like to think about. Ewwwww.