Two things :
- Kevin Kline is an attractive old man with his own set of charms (liked him since "In and Out");
- Gosh! Hayden Christensen has GORGEOUS eyes and eyelashes. Drool-able.
Itchy (like 10 toes bitten by mosquito).
Bitch.
& Pain (like hundreds of needles stabbing me at once).
Double-Bitch.
& Swollen (fingers and toes).
Bloody Bitch.
& Purple-sausage toes (that's when the blood circulation is screwed).
Bitch of All Mother Bitches!
Believe it or not, at the point of purple sausages, I was still having a mental debate with myself - "Should I consult a doctor?". For those that don't know, I HATE GPs AND I THINK THEY ARE THE MOST USELESS SORT OF DOCTORS THAT EXIST. They are called GPs for a reason ya know. General Practitioner - they generally practice diagnosis on you, they practice on you generally, and they generally practice medications on you.... three. Theoretically equipped, practically useless.
Past GPs comes specialists. The latter runs on the same line but slightly further than the GPs - highly-priced specialised prescribers.
Face it.
We love the drugs, we want the drugs.
They know it, they abuse.
We take it, we suffer for it.
The part I enjoy most about these so-called health-healers is the bit when I ask for the CAUSE of the problem. And I love it when first... they start out with hesitant "errrrs" and "erms", followed by "well, I can't tell you really. There are a few/many reasons for it...". Then, they break out with medical jargons that makes you feel like they are deliberately camouflaging their inability to explain the cause.
Talk human language.
By the end of it all, I still don't know the cause. Forget it. Just get the damn drugs and at least let that be of some use. It usually takes about another 2 revisits and 1 other visit to the specialist before I give up, and let nature do its own recovery.
So till today, I've settled on no-go to the GP. I tried the pharmacist (it IS the soothing drugs I'm after so....) the day before and that was when I was told I had Chill Blains. Again, alien. Chill Blains? The pharmacist looked at my foot and gawked. She gushed that mine is a severe case (hey... we are talking about purple-sausage-toes) and that if I had prolonged seeking treatment, I would face possible amputation. She explained to me blah blah exposed to the cold, blah blah bathing in too hot water (like can I help it? It is winter. Nothing beats having a nice HOT shower), blah blah will become frost bite, blah blah blah.....
Yup! That was about as much as I understood. The amputation part caught my attention though. It was like,"Huh? Is it that serious?" A bit freakish. I mean, isn't it just another one of my funny allergy reaction? A contributing factor towards aggravating the condition, yes. A direct cause, no.
So what is Chill Blains?
Cause - Repeated exposure of bare skin to temperatures between 0 and 10 degrees C.
Symptoms - The skin becomes red, rough, and itchy, but there is not loss of tissue.
And then I looked up Frost Bite :
Definition - Frostbite is freezing of specific parts of the body.
Cause - When exposed to cold, the body protects the inner core by constricting surface blood vessels. This results in decreased blood flow and heat to surface skin.
Where it occurs - Fingers and toes are most susceptible to frostbite but any part of the body exposed to cold air can be affected. Once a part has been frozen it is more liable to cold injuries on subsequent occasions.
How to recognise it - Frostbite is progressive:
- Frostnip - The skin turns white and becomes numb;
- Superficial Frostbite - The tissue beneath the surface feels soft and resilient;
- Deep Frostbite - The tissue beneath the surface feels hard and wooden.
- All descriptions extracted from www.ramblers.ab.ca/public/outdoortopics/coldinjuries.asp
I definitely can't tell which part of 'Frostbite' I'm at. Based on the descriptions, I only figured out this much - Chill Blains, yes. Frostbite, yes. Stage of frostbite, don't know. I was amused really. I had always assumed that the term 'Frost' would be ice or snow related. The idea that I got some form of frost bite was unimagineable. For a fact, it is winter, but I don't think I have not kept myself warm enough or something. But then again, I love the cold so much that perhaps I failed to recognise that I was exposing myself to too much cold.
I was further amused when I started doing web research. It definitely did not help my narrow perception of frost-whatever. I was reading about preventing/cure for chill blains in countries like Alaska. I still have problems grasping the idea that I am plagued with that bitch. It just seems so far-fetched that I could be suffering from something frost-related. Unimagineable.
I had a long chat (or so it seemed) with a friend who is currently studying to be a nurse. It was then that I realized how casual I was taking this whole chill-whatever-frost-whatever thing. I learnt that there are more complications involved than my anal retentive anti-medical mind will ever realize. So he has convinced me that it is time to go see my most favourite person in the world - the doctor. One thing about SA, specialists can only be consulted through recommendation from a GP. So either way, I have to see the... erhem... professionals.
Or maybe I should consider eventual amputation?
I wonder if the whole purpose of my working life is to be a source of income to these medical unprofessionals.
I'm starting to get used to walking on sausage toes.
Wobble wobble wobble.
My arms has also started to go into poor blood circulation, my fingers are swollen and the feet is a recurring case.
Oh what fun!
I would likely recommend that everyone has to suffer this at least once in a lifetime.
It is an experience not to be missed.
I can't resist but.... purple sausages.... anyone?
I've only got 10 to spare.
And this is my story about purple-sausage-toes.
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