Shingles is a bastard

Afternoon Mugs

There are loads of things that happen as we get older.  Stuff stops working quite as well. Befuddlement sets in as millennials re-write language. We scratch our heads at the notion of people not wanting gender labelling and then coming up with LGBTTTQQIAA to cover all bases. I mean, honestly could they make that any more cumbersome? Society changes and we're not consulted. And then we're made out to be the wrong 'uns. 

Despite the growing awareness and frequency of things not working quite as well as they used to,  it does seem that on top of that you're a bit more susceptible to other things hitting you. Things they don't teach you at school .

Three years ago I thought I was dying (as we all do in our 50s when we get ill) on the way to work. I was having what I thought were stomach cramps, but with no...ahem...end result the pain got worse. I should have turned around but being the brave (stupid) sort of person persevered and got to work. I was soaking through sweat and spent nearly 90 minutes in a toilet sweating more and more and getting weaker and weaker. In the end I cut my losses and struggled back home. I reckon I was so u fit to drive that any police officer pulling me up would have wanted to throw the book at me and then probably would have called the paramedics. It was THAT bad. What was it? Kidney Stones. They were zapped a few days later, itself an unpleasant and painful experience. No-one will ever tell me that I won't know the excruciating pain of childbirth because even women I know who've had kids and kidney stones said the pain from the latter was worse. 

In 2016 I had a fall on the way TO the pub because some ignorant prick parked his lorry on soft tarmac leaving  a pothole on a poorly lit road. Shoulders and hip took a beating but worst was the ankle. In 2018 I had ankle ligament reconstruction surgery as I couldn't walk anywhere without risking yet another fall. From the original fall to the operation I had in the region of 7 other falls due to the ankle not having anything in the way of connected ligaments. All fixed now it seems, but yeah 3 months in a cast then a surgical boot. Just when the run of bad luck seemed over..........on Boxing Day, post hangover I felt inland my upper right chest and shoulder blasé had a strange ache, and my right nipple itched, but an itch that scratching just seemed to ignite pain in deep. 

In typical bloke fashion you think the worst. HellsBells on the other hand, despite the full on Nurse Ratched levels of sympathy and compassion said 'Shingles'. My response was 'Bollocks, there's no rash'. 

Of course there wasn't a rash.....that doesn't come until later. So I hosted Boxing Night, sober and grumpy. Aware that the slightest touch to the now tingling areas would send me through the ceiling. Two days later there's the shingles rash. A visit to the doctor confirmed it. Fien, I thought, my tough luck, a few weeks of discomfort and no beer won't hurt. The rash lasts a week or so, but now.......now.....just as a sting in the tail....I am suffering post-herpetic neuralgia. And bloody rotten it is as well. It stabs, shoots, aches, tingles itches like hell and there's sod all to be done except take Gabapentin and try not to scratch. Scratching is like an invite to the nerves to lash back with excruciating, eye-watering pain. 

I've had better starts to the New Year. 

Later Mugs, GJ