What is it like to live with your most crucial limbs held together by metal and good luck? It’s a question that gets asked probably once a fortnight when somebody spots a scar. On a tattooed man scars are great because they take some spotting but when they are spotted they seem to be a prize. For spotting the sodding great scar you get a free question, apparently….
So the question is always pain related, as humans its our lowest common denominator. They ask ‘did it hurt’ then ‘did surgery hurt’ then ‘ did recovery hurt’ and finally ‘does it hurt now’. Luckily all of these questions can be answered with three letters….’YES’ The wrists are one of the most flexible, and complicated, joints in the body and mine are written off. Every day you make thousands of movements that I can’t but will still try to do. Of course it hurts, look at the X-rays they scream pain on their own without looking at me.
The next thing is always how long it took you to notice. Lets be clear you can’t hide this, when you notice I know that you have, I see the look and the way that your eyes follow the scars. You don’t notice because I will not let you notice unless you see the scars, I will not kowtow to the nefarious Ms Nature because I am better than that. But yes it does hurt and, to be fair, it hurts a lot. When I was typing a social media status earlier an unseen hoard of psychopaths stabbed blades into righty and I actually yelled out in pain. I don’t do this often, wont give her the ground of course, but this is pain, and she managed a level of pain that required my audio support, in short it bloody hurt!
So yes in simple terms it hurts, a lot, all of the time, day and night, but I can still type. The deal that I have struck (ish) with Ms Nature is that I will live with the pain, I will laugh it off on a daily basis, I will wake up every day (and have for years now) and say “ouch” and every now and again she will test my limits. She will test me so hard that I will shout out or, if I am trading, I will drop something . This is not the nagging, grinding, crunching pain that is daily toil but a special and targeted pain that crucifies me and she knows that she can do it, almost at will.
So when you see a barman drop a glass and you do the comedy cheer think on, one of us is in so much pain that I am close to blacking out. Normally when I drop a glass it takes every single ounce of self-control to recover, this is my battlefield with Ms Nature and this is where she can gain ground. When the simple action of using an optic can bring a grown man to his knees then we know it’s not a battle its a war. I will never let her win I am , after all, an Engineer so I never have trusted nature but don’t be mislead, it is a fight and its a daily/hourly battle. Once again, you wonder why I look tired, every minute of every day I am battling. Just writing this is hurting like you wouldn’t want to believe but I am me and Ms Nature? well she has the long game but otherwise she is just a loser.