I'm too old for this!

[Nick]

That's right, I'm far too old for this.

Not THIS, the gaming stuff, but THIS, this weird thing on my finger.

Let’s roll back a week and I’ll tell you all about it.

It all started with this innocent looking little dot on my finger that I first thought was a bit of a splinter or something. I decided to do that manly thing of digging it out with a needle.

So being all practical and manly I first sterilised the needle in question in the gas flame, first dropping it because it got too hot, re-sterilising it and then dropping it a second time when my wife made me jump by yelling at me for using one of her best needles. Best needles? Do women have a ‘for best’ of everything? I mean, taking a look around my office (which doubles as our dining room) I can see the best cutlery drawer, the best napkins and tablecloth drawer, the best placemats and coasters and the best glasses.

Her wardrobe is the same. There’s the best shoes, the best dress and the best blouse. She even has underwear that’s ‘for best’ for crying out loud! I can sort of understand best clothes for posh occasions but who’s going to see her underwear if she’s somewhere posh? I’ve been to a few black tie dinners before and even in these days of tightened security I’ve yet to encounter a strip search on entry to the restaurant.

But I digress. Having ruined her best needle beyond all hope of it ever showing itself in polite sewing circles again, I sterilised it for the third time and set about removing the splinter. Now, it’s worth noting that as manly as it may be to dig a splinter out of your finger in a mini-homage to Rambo stitching himself up in First Blood; you really do have to fight back the tears when you dig that needle in for the first time having forgotten to let it cool as you’ve now given yourself a needle thick third degree burn…

But once my vision had stopped blurring and my nose stopped running, I had a bit of a root around to discover that it wasn’t a splinter but a tiny, tiny blister. Now I know I play a lot of games and I’ve had WASD cramp before but never a blister. So I chalked it up to just being an odd thing and thought nothing of it.

Three days later the innocent little blister had now spawned a dozen other little blisters running down the side of my finger… and now they were itchy. I don’t just mean itchy along the lines of a light tickle, I mean itchy along the lines of scrub them with wire wool. This was major itchiness, Premier League itchy with a side order of scratch me. I suppose one good thing abut having a deep itch like this on your finger is that unlike a back itch that needs another a human being to relieve and make you go ‘Ahhhhh’, this finger itch is reachable all by myself, so I can bask in that ‘Ahhhhh’ moment whenever I fancied.

However, the missus wasn’t too impressed with the amount of rapid hand movements and ‘Ahhhh’ing going on without her involvement and ordered me off to the doctors to get it checked out. Me? I’d have left it until my Black and Decker sander’s motor had burned out or I was down to the bone but I had to confess, my finger was looking like it had been savaged by a pitbull terrier with razors for teeth… so off I trudged.

So the doctor has a look at this mangled lump of flesh and, after plenty of umming and ahhing and, rather maddeningly running his finger over the offending area to bring on a massive scratching bout, he declares I have eczema. Eczema? No, it can’t be. Eczema’s for kids. I’m too damn old to have gone all through life without so much as a rash and now, at the age of 30-something, I develop eczema? I looked at the pink lump on my left hand and wondered why it had chosen to regress… Maybe my hand has only just realised its hit 30 and is having a second childhood now?

I was obviously looking crestfallen so my GP decided to cheer me up with some good news. I haven’t gone a developed just any old eczema, I’ve gone and given myself a proper man’s eczema, something worthy to talk about down the pub (other than why I’m wearing my ‘for best’ socks). Apparently, this eczema, as they go, is the skin irritation version of Ebola. No, really. This stuff is so aggressive that when viewed under a microscope it’s carrying a bat and has ‘KILL’ tattooed on its knuckles.

It’ll romp all over me in the time it takes to nip to Homebase for more sanding sheets. It’ll run up my arm and drive me to distraction, forcing me to by a chainsaw and give my arm the Evil Dead treatment. If not stopped now, the whole of my body will end up looking like my finger (according to my wife, some parts already do) and I’ll be driven mad by the itching.

Now at this point I’m thinking that he’s going to zip on a quarantine suit, burn my clothes (probably with me still in them) and then air-bomb the village just to be sure but no, he taps away on his PC and sends me off out the door assuring me I’m about as infectious as tap water. My ego, faced with the knowledge I was carrying something so dreadful that the US government might want blood samples for their bio-weapons labs, was just a little dented by this fact but I rallied well, expecting to be told that lots of bed rest and a nurse in a short skirt with a propensity for dropping her pen would be required to cure me.

But no, all it needed was a cream. A cream? But you said I was going to lose my whole hand… followed by my arm and my head before this demon rash spread south and engulfed my important parts! How is a cream going to save me? You don’t see the medic in war films running up and rubbing in cream! Bruce Willis in Die Hard doesn’t stop in mid-gun battle to rub a bit of cream on his foot! Dustin Hoffman doesn’t save the town in Outbreak by dabbing a bit of lotion over everyone! Cream? Haven’t you got anything more… macho? Like a self-administered course of injections into my stomach or a procedure where I pare the flash from my finger with a bowie knife holding the tourniquet with my teeth?

No.

So I sulk off with my cream and do you know what? It’s working a treat. I’ve put the belt sander away and cancelled the order for the table saw. Of course, I don’t feel particularly hard rubbing a bit of lotion on my hands three times a day, so to compensate I tie a bandana around my head and hide in the garage eating pork ribs warmed over a small fire, pretending the National Guard are after me… Still, at least that bandana has finally given me a use for a tie I was saving ‘for best’….

[Theo]

I feel your pain chap. I had, what sounds like, exactly the same thing running along the top and sides of my fore/index fingers a few months ago. It was always quite itchy, but it used to flare up badly every couple of days. Managed to get rid of it with a homemade preparation though.

Speedy recovery to you sir!

[Moby-Dick]

Will sir be requiring one or two pink shirts with that ?

If I find out theres any moisturiser in that , you'll be banned from yourkie bars before you can say oil of ulay

[Michael]

That was an absolutely awesome post.

Brilliant. Pure class!

[BEANFro Elite]

Notes were certainly taken for propaganda and medical purposes...

But yeah, I also have a significantly smaller scale thing like that on two of my fingers, but they aren't itchy at all; they're more wartlike than eczema but I may go and get it checked out as I've never EVER had warts before.

[Nemeliza]

I too share your pain, i have also been cursed with the retchid skin condition they refer to as Eczema. It can be pretty bad but i dont think its qite your super-kamikaze-rabie-infested-ebola-bat-yeilding-kill variant but its still a b**ch.

[noah]

he he, great post nick. i'm doing dermatology at the minute and its all about as exicting as giving a bit of cream to a patient, but hey ho, im still waiting for flesh eating bacteria to cheer me up. maybe then i'll don a bandana and get to fixing it properly.

[Kaine (AoD)]

haha pure class always seem to enjoy readin your little storys nick this ones a cracker ^ ^ had me in stitches

[shelley bda]

Awww poor Nick

Exzema can be damn uncomfortable, our youngest had infant Exzema from birth, sunlight used to aggravate it terribly, it spread from his chest to his face, we were given Betnovate cream and oilatum bath oil to stick in his bathwater, i heard that porridge oats in bathwater is good for Exzema, never fancyed trying it though, luckily his cleared up when he was four and it's never returned ( as yet )

[Kaine (AoD)]

Originally Posted by shelley bda

i heard that porridge oats in bathwater is good

that sounds like alot of fun lol

[nichomach]

My wife has eczema, and I grew up with psoriasis. I really do feel for you; why is it that so many people think it's "just a skin thing" and forget that your skin's the largest damn organ in your body? I hope it stays cleared up, Nick - and thanks for a GREAT read.

[Lee @ SCAN]

I know your pain Nick as I suffer from psoriasis.

At the moment I've got it on the inner ear channel, which means its damn itchy all the time and no matter what I try it will not clear up... as yet.

It's clearing up from on my head where it is usually located, but there was 1 time when I was 16 when I woke one morning to what looked like chicken pox. Within a few days it was apparent that it was not chicken pox but psoriasis gone mad and I had to have various trips to hospital to be wrapped in bandages with some coal tar ointments etc soaked into them. Oh how I must have looked then, I bet people thought I was a mummy for 4 weeks

Funny thread as usual fella - had me giggling at most parts

[DeludedGuy]

Post of the week?

[Lee @ SCAN]

Originally Posted by shelley bda

oilatum bath oil to stick in his bathwater

hahahahhahaaha I have that too.

Funny as hell if you put too much in and forget about it.

Many a time I've got in the bath and *BANG* I've gone arse over head and landed in a heap underwater.

[Moby-Dick]

Originally Posted by Lee @ SCAN

I know your pain Nick as I suffer from psoriasis.

At the moment I've got it on the inner ear channel, which means its damn itchy all the time and no matter what I try it will not clear up... as yet.

It's clearing up from on my head where it is usually located, but there was 1 time when I was 16 when I woke one morning to what looked like chicken pox. Within a few days it was apparent that it was not chicken pox but psoriasis gone mad and I had to have various trips to hospital to be wrapped in bandages with some coal tar ointments etc soaked into them. Oh how I must have looked then, I bet people thought I was a mummy for 4 weeks

Funny thread as usual fella - had me giggling at most parts

I seem to be getting that at the moment - its gone beyond what I'd call dandruff - infact stephen spielbarg has caled me up and asked me to be ET's body double in the next medical scene.

[Lee @ SCAN]

heh - like I said I have a little bit on my head now ( thanks special shampoo ) but its migrating south to my inner ear and also my shin.

My shins got a big patch which probably looks like Alan Smiths after his broken bone accident.

Still - could be worse I suppose, it will clear up with drugs and ointments