The Replacement Arm

Oh God, I've been lost in thought over something fucking ridiculous again.

It started about 6 (ish) weeks ago when a random arm pain turned from being a minor irritation to actually entering my conscious as something which I felt should have gone away long ago.  This pain, which was throughout my left arm and onto a bit of my chest, became known as  my 'heart attack arm'.  I complained about it bitterly without taking any positive action.

Well, recently the sharper pains have subsided to simply leave a constant dull ache unless I move my arm in a certain way.  The sane part of my brain tells me it's just a strain or something, the insane part of my brain tells me that the only possible answer is cancer. 

Arm cancer to be precise.

Of course I know you can't have localised cancer of 'just' the left arm so I haven't been thinking about it too much.

THEN, this morning I had a 3:30am visit from the Tidiness Nazi who wished to inform me that she'd been woken up by my car alarm going off.  The car was parked along the main road and it was pissing down with rain.  In short, I went out to the car and, well I can't be bothered to go into the entire story but the incident ended with me in a massive temper pushing the car on my own and trying to get enough speed so I could jump into it and jump start it into life.

..which I did.

I returned to bed at around 4am, soaking wet and pissed off but couldn't sleep.  It's those 4am moments when you start to *think* that's the real killer.  My hypochondria knows no bounds when it's 4am and I've got a random pain which should have gone away weeks ago. 

I shared my catastrophising with a work colleague who understands the joy of hypochondria.

Me (miserably):  So, I reckon I've got some form of arm cancer or an arm rottening disease but the pain is right up high past my shoulder!  They'll have to remove so much of me that I might not be able to wear a prosthetic arm 'cause there won't be anything to fit it on to.  AND as I'm so broke at the moment, if I DID get a false arm it's likely to be a cheap comedy pre-moulded rubber one that just hangs there.  It'll be an NHS one so it's likely to be an institutional kind  of blue colour and it'll be just that bit too long.....

Colleague: You'll just have to stick a twig in the hole then.

Me (perking up): Like a snowman?

Well that was it.  I was lost in thought about my snowman arm just jutting straight out of my body with 3 little stick fingers at the end.  I forgot about my impending doom and allowed myself to laugh heartily at the vision.  I told my colleague I'd have to find a watch with a very small strap to put on my little jutty-out arm.  I thought about going out in public and how people would be too polite to say anything to my face.  That's something which always makes me laugh - the politeness of the British in the face of something fucking ridiculous.  I'm still giggling like a moron at the picture in my head which, fortunately, has replaced the dark thoughts of this morning when I was doom-laden with images of me trying to write with my other hand and wondering whether I'd be allowed to keep my detached arm so I could get it cremated and put the ashes in with my Mother.  That'd be something - the cremains of my mother, her cat and my arm in one container. 

I even wondered whether she'd get my arm in the afterlife before I got there to join it.  That'd piss you off wouldn't it - having to care for a detached arm in the hereafter.

Still, you could look down and enjoy your daughter's new replacement snowman arm!