the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Yes I know what objective reality is – and more importantly what it isn’t – and that I should really have titled this blog post “My subjective reality is objectionable” but I’m sure you’ll agree that “My objective reality is objectionable” is a much better title.

It neatly sums up how I feel about things at this precise moment in time.

Because as I dictate this I’m bedevilled by a trapped nerve. More specifically, a trapped nerve at the base of my neck which has manifested itself in a constant pain in my left upper arm. Quite how anyone is meant to describe pain to another person is akin to describing the properties of water to a chimpanzee – a ridiculous undertaking. What exactly is a sharp pain? Or a dull pain? Indeed, does pain have a chart that denotes its liveliness? Can pain be effervescent or good humoured? Or does it just skulk in the background? Rather like a neighbour you invite to your party and are dismayed when he turns up because all he does is sits in the corner, talking to no one and wearing clothing that a Goth would call unnecessarily colourful. All I know is that my pain is annoyingly constant and even more annoyingly seemingly imperious to over the counter drugs.

Why you might ask, if the pain is so bad is he relying on over the counter drugs? Because of the nature of my brain injury there are certain types of pain killers that I can’t take. Whilst these reasons might be quite reasonable, at 3am in the morning when one hasn’t slept due to the pain and nor is likely to, these reasons seem anything but reasonable.

In order to rule anything out that might be a cause for concern, a few days ago I presented myself to my doctor and he suggested a urine test. Now, I can understand that a urine test can be quite tricky for people especially if they do not come with suitable attachments to get the fluid from one storage area to another. Thankfully, my doctor was on hand to supply some very helpful advice. He reminded me of the doctor in Blue Jam. He described in what he thought was straight forward – but it wasn’t – exactly how the transfer of fluids was to occur. He rather cryptically said – and I quote – “On no account should you let your Percy make contact with the pot” This relied on me knowing what he meant by ‘Percy’. Thankfully, I’ve seen my fair share of ‘Carry On’ films so I’m well versed in euphemisms for the pink oboe!

Specimen pots for containing such fluids have always baffled me. Exactly how is one supposed to gage exactly when to introduce the pot to the stream of liquid amber without getting the rest of the liquid amber all over your hands? One is therefore quite literally taking the proverbial.  In my case this was not the case as rather hilariously I have profound fine motor skill difficulties, which resulted in me dropping the specimen pot into the toilet. If there’s one thing less life affirming I’d be keen to know what it is. Because at that moment when your hands are sopping wet and you’re staring down at a floating rebuke all dignity is gone. What a fun start to the day that turned out to be!

Mind you, in the pantheon of fun days I’ve had since waking up from the coma it was just par of the course. The obstacle course that is my existence now. The way I see it – and the way I see it is through a pair of swimming goggles with one lens cut out leaving the other one to form a moisture chamber around my eye with Bells Palsy – is that it is one thing after another. Once the pain in my arm goes there will soon be another obstacle in its way to confound and annoy me. What it is remains unknown – for now at any rate – but it will come. Then it too will fade and another will foist itself upon me, with all the persistence of a dog trying to shag your leg. I know I wasn’t always this depressed. I know that before the accident I must have felt cheerful, content, relaxed or just calm but if I did I can’t remember them. Or more accurately I can’t remember what it those feelings feel like. I hope you can’t imagine what that feels like. Because I know. And I’ve got that, like an unwelcome guest in my head all, of the time. For over three years.

So when I’m enjoined that the pain in my arm will pass with the admission that yes it’s a bit of an annoyance but it will soon pass, in my state of constant depression I think yes but something equally bad will follow in its wake. Rather than the sunny upland of poetry there is instead the foul quagmire of my reality! Of course this is how I’m feeling today at this exact moment as I dictate this (dictating because if I put any pressure at all on any of my fingers then I immediately get a pain in my left arm).

It’s now the morning after I dictated the above, meaning that I am typing this and it effing hurts. The doctor prescribed me something for the pain, which was as much use as marshmallow axe. Actually a marshmallow axe would taste better. I’m stuck in the eternal present of pain – there is no past and no future, only the now and this constant pain.

And I woke up from my coma for this?