I am distracted by an infected finger. Something has managed to lodge itself underneath the top layers of skin on the little finger of my right hand. It is not so much painful, as it bothers me.
There is a lump that I have attacked twice now with a needle hoping to dislodge the splinter or whatever it is that rests there. My husband has offered to do the job for me. Once I would have welcomed that but not now. Now I prefer to minister to myself but I am squeamish. I do not go in hard enough. I cannot reach the foreign objects and I develop dreadful fantasies of bits of this thing splitting off and floating along my blood stream till it reaches my heart where it will cause a clot and kill me. Such hypochondriasis.
It’s not just a function of age. Though my fears get worse as I age. I’ve always been like this. I went once to visit a doctor in Carnegie because I discovered a slight bump in the middle of my big toe, a bump or lump, whatever it was, I decided for a day or so that at last I had the dreaded cancer. I was only twenty-two but I would be dead within months.
‘It’s a ganglion,’ the doctor said. And proceeded to tell me that the only way to treat it, if indeed treatment were necessary, was to drop a bible on top to squash it. Most likely it would go away of its own accord, he said. And it did.
5 comments:
No, I understand totally. What is more I resent my body for doing stuff like that to me. After being together for twelve years I actually let my wife clip a toenail for me. Just the one mind. And the foot was withdrawn as soon as the deed was done lest she decide she wanted to have a poke at anything else.
It's worse this morning, the lump in my finger that is. It's red and throbbing. I must do something about it.
I had a beloved friend several years ago. This is no joke. She died of the equivalent of gangrene. A bug had crept inside her system and killed her.
A splinter of course is not the same as a bug. Mr friend's was the sort the soldiers copped in the trenches during WW1. Mine's just a splinter, but it's amazing what damage a foreign body can still do.
oh you must be a Virgo
(sorry Richard Dawkins).
I have ganglions on my foot arches and they look like the calluses that surfers get from kneeling on their boards so much.
The web is wonderful for identifying stuff.
I'm not a virgo. Guess again.
It seems I accidentally deleted another comment you, Bwca Brownie made in response to another posting of mine, before I allowed it to be published accidentally, where you refer to the dangers of identifying yourself fully.
I'm interested in this business. the nastiness of blogdom and the kindliness too. Such contrasts among strangers.
that Bwca is a little ditsy and does not remember the comment or it's failure to appear, so fret not.
For the kindness of strangers may I direct you to Melb-blogger Health Philosophy Politics And Other Rants who has photographed a street notice kind people made about a found bunny toy.
Your clickthrough will reward you with warm fuzzy kindness of humankind type feelings.
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