Treatments and Therapies

Yesterday was my tri-monthly Botox injection day!

As John pulled into the clinic car park we noticed with no little annoyance that two of the spaces set aside for the disabled had themselves been disabled by having a large shiny black Mercedes parked across them!!

The personalised number plate alerted me to the **at responsible for this transgression D**I (I was guessing it was my Doctor at the clinic Dr D**i) who should definitely know better!

After many loud expletives from John re: the lack of thought of some drivers we eventually found a spot.

He lugged my wheelchair out of the boot/trunk and in we trudged, almost taking the paint off the Merc as we squeezed past it; both now in considerably fouler frames of mind as, by this time, we were now late for my appointment.

I hate having this procedure done as it generally involves 8-10 injections deep into the various muscles of my left (stroke affected) arm and leg. Usually I can bear it by focusing all my attention on the large colourful diagram of the human muscular system on the wall behind the Doctor, on which by now I believe I could answer University Challenge questions. (similar to the one below which was nicked off Google by the admin. assistant who will be in trouble for doing this, one of these days.)

The diagram consists of two figures one showing the frontal system the other the rear, both figures have their left arms on their hips in a rather effeminate posture - in fact they look to me like a gay couple who have fallen out and because of this I have named them Roger Daily (front facing) and Claude Butt opposite facing. Pathetic I know but this and some deep yoga breathing helps me to cope with the coming trauma!

Usually the Doctor is assisted by a nurse who holds my arm in a grip that many a wrestler would envy, in order to prevent said limb from jumping spasmodically when the Doctor gets to work. Unfortunately on this occasion no nurse was available and I was called upon to hold my own arm, thereby ensuring that I had to watch the whole procedure of the entire 3-4 inch length of the needle disappearing into my flesh 8 times.

As anything which causes the stroke affected arm to go into spasm also affects the leg too, by the time Dr D**i got around to my left calf muscle it was bunched as hard as an Olympic downhill skier's but this did not deter him at all. As he lunged at it I did my breathing exercise as well as I could to try to relax the muscle in order to reduce the pain, and fixed my gaze on the docs gold Rolex rather than the poster behind him.

Sadly this did not work and he had a tremendous job to stick the now somewhat blunted needle into my gastrocnemius muscle (see chart, lower leg).

Just as the pain got bad I looked up at the human muscular system diagram which moved slightly in the breeze from the open window. The result of this was that the Roger Daily figure rolled over Claude Butt's and continued to move slightly back and forth, much to my amusement. Unable to control myself I let out a loud guffaw, which caused the Doc to jerk upright yanking the needle out of my leg as he did so.

I quickly stopped laughing when I spotted that the needle was now at a complete right angle to the attached syringe - the bugger had bent it when forcing it into my muscle!

And some do this for beauty?

Hope my wheelchair scrapes his bliddy car when we go back to the carpark! And that's enough of that!!

Helen

xxx