Friday

Aren’t painkillers wonderful?

The whole point of Going Cheep, as I made plain when I commenced it at the beginning of August, is to write a couple of hundred words or so every day on whatever’s on my mind when I start typing.

And today it’s the wonder of painkillers. Now, to be fair, that’s not exactly an original observation; anyone with an ongoing painful condition quickly learns to appreciate that moment, that exact moment, when the painkillers kick in. There’s a small but distinct lessening of pain… and it’s marvellous. No matter how often, no matter how regularly, you never quite get used to it and it’s always a genuine relief.

I’ve been on strong prescription painkillers for a long time due to a couple of bones dying in my foot; I’m well used to pain at one end of my body. I’m not so used, however, to agonising, crippling pain at the other end, viz my shoulder.

Well, that changed yesterday, when a trip, a flip, and a crashingdownmywholebodyweightonmyshoulder led - I discovered today - to me breaking my clavicle, or collarbone. To be precise, I’ve fractured the end of the bone, and as a result, the bone has fractured lengthways along the bone.

It’s rather painful (and I discovered again tonight new ways for it to hurt when I had a shower…)

And the painkillers I took an hour or so ago have just started working.

Aren’t painkillers wonderful? Yes, they are, and they’ll be wonderful again in a few hours and again tomorrow. The gift that keeps on giving indeed.