PAIN!

For highly valid reasons that deserve a post of their own on another occasion, my place of work has a physiotherapy centre. Whilst my clumsiness has not reached the level where I require help learning to walk again or anything, I’ve enjoyed the odd spot of treatment there for various joint wobbles and muscular twinges over the years.

During one such visit, I was informed that with regular deep muscle massage, and regular campaigns of stretching and exercise, there is no reason at all why I shouldn’t stay nimble and limber ’til the day I die, scampering about without complaint. See all those elderly folk out there who are all stiff and hunched over? That’s just down to years of untreated muscular strain, which could have been addressed and fixed.

Anyhow, I’ve begun going there more often, in an attempt to recognise any creakiness as a sign that I’m sleeping in a back-knackering position, or should be wearing a different shoulder bag, or possibly even swinging my hips more as a stroll down the strada.

Anyway, ahead of a planned game of badminton, I popped in to have a grumbly leg checked out, keen to establish that I wouldn’t be damaging it every time I ineffectually lunged at the empty space just a few inches short of the shuttlecock.

The session ended with my foot and lower leg lightly strapped up in lovely gummy strips of sticking plaster, to reduce the risk of over exerting the ligaments around my ankle which I had in fact damaged. I was playing after work, and the sticking plaster then had to be removed in its entirety at the end of the day.

Before I go any further, I’ll also add that I did get offered a gel-filled ankle support which was held on with velcro. Heartily secure and yet wonderfully friendly velcro. But I instead found myself opting for the yards of strapping, adhered tightly and directly to the skin.

It’s not often that I feel able to speak with genuine authority, but if you were to ask me to select the part of the body which it is most painful to have to remove large amounts of sticking plaster from, I’m going with the shins every time. With so little muscle or fat down the front, there didn;t seem anything to brace, clench or otherwise tighten in anticipation, and the hairs felt like they were being plucked directly from the bone. Brrr.

My feet were alright. In fact the only cause for concern was just how ready the skin was to stretch loosely away from its contents. Damn, I have slack ankles. But the lower leg was the killer. Now I’m not an overly hairy man. In fact, thanks to the plaster I’m even less hairy than I was this morning, but yanking the hairs out by the dozen was an experience that I’m in no hurry to repeat. Or at least won’t be, once they grow back.

I’m frankly not finding any of this any less unpleasant than just having a sore calf muscle. To the extent that I’m starting to suspect that some of this stuff doesn’t actually help fix you, you just learn to stop complaining about your creaky bits quite so readily.

Tomorrow they’ve suggested they might put me in an ice bath. And yet I think come the morning all that strapping will miraculously have done the trick. And I’ll be able to run. Run far, far away.