Would you credit it, I’ve got a new mystery illness.
Once the major lurgy was banished I was hoping for a little time off. Not so m’dears. Instead I have been visited by the weirdest of incapacities, something that has my GP totally confused.
I will present you with my symptoms and await your diagnosis.
All day long I have acute pins and needles in both my hands. Periodically I get dreadful electric shocks through one or other of them. Typing or writing aggravates them so I will pay for this later. At night, the pain levels in both hands become so fierce that I have to get up and wave my arms about until the pain backs off. When the pain is at its height I cannot touch anything as my hands are hypersensitive and the pain then becomes unbearable.
Hands up those people who think I have trapped a nerve. Thank you for trying, but the computer says no. I have been to the physioterrorist who has stretched and pummeled me to no avail. Apparently I have very good flexibility in my neck which is good, considering I have damn all anywhere else. If called upon to enter “Britain’s Got Talent” my speciality will be “looking playfully over my left shoulder”.
In a final attempt to establish the cause of the pain, small Paul the pocket sized physio stood on the bed behind me, grabbed my head in a lock and attempted to remove it from my spine. I last saw this manouvre on a Saturday afternoon when Mick McManus rearranged the joints of Big Daddy. After two falls and a submission, small Paul accepted defeat like a man and confirmed he could not find any nerves, trapped or otherwise. We parted as friends.
I am now on a happy cocktail of 75mg amatrypthingy,100 mg tramadoodah (3 times a day), 40 mg Gabapenwhatsit and my lovely Tamoxoojit. On average I have a 20 minute window each day when I make some kind of sense. And I still get up each night to do an impression of a windmill – what fun!
To occupy me, my GP has referred me for a bone scan. I feel this is unnecessary as I am fairly confident that I do indeed have bones. There must be more to this than simple stocktaking.
In other news I have an appointment with a genetic counsellor to establish whether Grandma Mort has endowed me with the special gift of a recessive gene which caused my cancer. From my father I inherited my big nose and dislike of social occasions. From my mother, a non-PC cookie jar and this.
Sister 2 has already been confirmed as a carrier and is to have a double mastectomy, reconstruction and removal of her ovaries.Her daughters will then be tested. Sisters 1 and 4 get their results on Friday. I have my appointment in June.
I have come to the conclusion that the pins and needles have appeared as a distraction from the rest of my life.
The Grand Moguls of Old People R Us have decided to move my job 20 miles away up the M54. They told me this on the day I came back to work after my diagnosis. Timing is all. However, I have declined to go with the work for two good reasons. Firstly, Grandpa Mort is taking more looking after, so I need to be close. Secondly, I DON’T WANT TO.
Instead, I am staying put and returning to my previous job where I hunt pensioners down across the county. It’s a superb job – tea in a cup and saucer and all the biscuits you can eat. My only concern is the difficulties I have getting up from a comfy chair. I have warned my family that if I’m not home by teatime, I’m probably marooned on a settee somewhere, doing my best impression of an upended tortoise whilst glancing playfully over my left shoulder.
Toodle pip and keep checking your jiggly bits.