Monday 8 November 2004

Pic of the day: Screenshot from the anime "Final Approach", about a government initiative to increase fertility by forcing young people to marry a computer-selected ideal partner. Some embrace the project with more enthusiasm than others ... although in my case, the physical interaction was of a very different nature. (Still, it did involve some degree of undressing...)

Getting physical

Well, physical therapy in this case. Rather than just let me relax and wait for my well deserved disability pension, the doctor has launched a flurry of attempts to somehow restore my hand to working condition. I suppose he is kinda obliged to do this by his Hippocratic Oath, although we don't generally live in a hippocracy. Rather our society approaches humans with the same mentality as we approach everything else with: Use, then throw away.

(I suspect anyone who reads this journal regularly is reasonably familiar with the most basic vocabulary of ancient Greek, that last refuge of the erudite. But just in case you drop by purely out of concern for my health, I feel obliged to point out that the literal meaning of "hippocracy" is "rule by horses". The added association of "hippo" as in the overly well-rounded and irritable tropical animal is an added bonus, not to mention that the word is pronounced much like "hypocrisy". One of my better inventions this season, I'd say. Feel free to spread it around!)

In addition to making me leg it for an hour a day (which I anyway used to do but at a more sedate pace), the doctor required me to take physiotherapy. (Not psychotherapy, although that might have been at least as appropriate, what with the big role stress has played in building up to these damages. Then again, most psychologists are probably less intelligent and knows less about the human psyche than I, whereas physiotherapists not only knows more about muscles but also have more of them. We will return to this topic shortly.)

My appointment was at 16 (4PM), and with me working only 50% this wasn't hard to reach. There is even a bus from the city that is supposed to arrive at Tangvall at 15:58, and the "Health House" is near the station. Now, from the choice of the words 'supposed to arrive' you may already have guessed what happened. Yes, evidently 15:30 is still rush hour in Kristiansand. (I wouldn't know, as I don't normally go home that early.) So I was a bit delayed, but not enough for the therapist to start doing something else, so in the end it was all alright. (Except I came just too late for the bus home as well, but that might have happened anyway.)

***

At first I was to lie still for a while, which I rarely do while conscious. (This was for some hot packaging around my neck and shoulder to heat up what little muscles I have there.) I was lying on my back, as I almost never do even in my sleep. And finally, eventually, I happened to look down along my body. That's when I noticed it. I had been required to take off the clothes on my upper body, so there was no mistaking it. The famous midlife bulge, the quivering mound of fat on the masculine belly, was conspicuously absent. Indeed, in its place was a crater.

The observation was little less shocking than waking up one morning to see the sun slowly rising in the west. In a dizzying heartbeat my self- image shifted ... you could almost hear the groaning of giant cranes moving the enormous structure.

I'm not fat.

OK, that explains a few things. I have already wondered in these pages how comes all my fat is concentrated in one area. No double chin, no soft arms, no chubby thighs. (I still have my fairly broad hips for my gender ... but that's all bones these days. Those are decided much earlier in life, and this is quite a story in itself. Not for today, though.)

Further studies later on has confirmed my initial impression. It seems that rather than fat, it is my honest God-given food processing apparatus that is normally on the verge of falling out, thanks to the almost complete lack of muscles. At some point during the last decade or so, I have even subconsciously stopped strutting for the chics. The muscles that normally keep my guts in have fallen in disuse. Well, it's not like I'm rowing to work or anything, so there really is no other use for them. I am able to walk around quite fine, and sit, and sleep, without washboard muscles.

I suppose this could all be construed as a good thing: "Ooh, I'm not fat, how healthy!" Or it could be tapeworms or cancer. Who knows? I suppose the future, if any, will show. For the time being, I'll just continue doing what I do. It's not like I could eat much more without getting sick anyway.

***

Things got worse from there. The therapist returned. He ordered me to lie on my stomach (which I suppose would have been uncomfortable if there was a lot of it, now that I think about it) and then proceeded to pinch my neck and shoulders. It seems he pretty quickly found the places where he could make it hurt the most, even though I did not even wince. Temporary pain is not a big deal to me, unless it has the strength of agony or signifies some grave danger. In this case, none of the two applied, so I pretty much shut it out and concentrated on my breathing. Though I did tell him after a while that I had got steaks in restaurants that were less tenderized. This he accepted readily. By the time he was breathing audibly himself, which I innocently choose to attribute to the exertion of therapeutic violence rather than hot desire for my luscious male body. I would probably have reconsidered if he had drooled on me, but he did not, so I stick with my original theory.

I could have had another hour on Wednesday, but considering that this treatment would probably still hurt by then, we agreed to skip to Friday again, at the same time, then Monday. At some point in the future I am also likely to have to pay for this, although it may well be that the state will subsidize it a little. If not, I doubt I would need some formal document from my doctor to get into it. There are a lot of places I can come and shop without my doctor's blessing. Including the chocolate store, strangely enough.

And that was that. I missed the bus, bought groceries that could have waited till tomorrow, and took the next bus home.