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After months of putting up with a pain in the muscles of my upper left arm I finally went to see a physio today. In spite of my experience of having cancer and not wanting to bother the GP with it, it took Catie giving me a list of local businesses for me to get on with this. I can't even remember how long this has been going on, but I'd say I've probably been in intermittent pain for about 9 months.
Apparently married men live longer than single men, and it's only because their wives make them go to the doctor.
We are, as if you needed any further proof, fucking idiots.
Wait, here's some more proof.
The physio was about 20 minutes walk from my house. I followed the instructions she had sent, though the email didn't give me either her phone number or her full address. I found the latter on Google maps - it was at the back of a residential address. The instructions said to get to the turning and then immediately turn right. There was a path immediately to the right which took me down towards the number house that I'd got from my phone. But when I got there there was no real indication of any business and when I tried to open the garden gate, it was locked. I didn't really know what to do as I had no way of contacting her beyond email, so I considered ringing the bell of the house, but couldn't find one.
As I wondered what to do a man came out of the house and aggressively asked me what I was doing. I said that I was looking for the physio. "That's at the back, down the next road," he snarled, "This is my house."
I apologised but he was very pissed off. "The instructions are very clear," he growled. Now, I could appreciate this was annoying for him and I didn't know if he had any connection to the business or the physio, but reiterated that I was at his house.
I told him that I didn't think the instructions were very clear. They had said to turn right immediately, which I had done, not take the first right that was a good 15 metres on. Perhaps the instructions assumed I was driving, but I was not driving.
I didn't say this, but I have to assume from the level of annoyance that this man was exhibiting from what was really a minor infraction -all I had done was try his garden gate. I hadn't even knocked- suggested that this happened quite a lot. If I was the first then this man had a very short fuse. And if it happened a lot, then that was evidence that the instructions were not very clear.
I went on my way, but he was still arguing with me, so I told him to fuck off. So two stupid men had managed to turn something very insignificant into a potential cause of conflict. I worried now that he was the physio's partner and that he might head down the garden and either hit me or tell her that she wasn't allowed to mend my shoulder.
There was a man getting into a car at the back of the property as I got to the correct location, but I wasn't sure that it was him or not, as I hadn't had a good look. And if it was him, he didn't try to talk to me or run me over.
The physio answered the door (though it took her about half a minute) and didn't seem to think I was a dick or mention the argument, so maybe she just rented this space and was nothing to do with the angry man. You'd think if he was her partner or sibling or flat mate that he'd be a bit more polite to even the stupider customers.
She did an amazing job of getting to the root of the problem and did a painful, but in a satisfying way, job of deep tissue massage. She thought it was a problem with my rotator cuff muscles, and the massage certainly suggested that was something to do with it, but later decided that it was probably a frozen shoulder and that the muscles had been affected by that. She gave me some exercises to do and made another appointment and although certainly not cured (the main problem is something that will right itself eventually) I was in a lot less pain for the rest of the day.
And lucky not to have been punched in the face.
In spite of the troll who guards the gate I will be returning in a couple of weeks
There's a bonus podcast on my feed today for Cancer Research UK in which Matt Forde, Mark Steel and I discuss our experiences with cancer. It's a really good and funny chat and you should really listen to this one https://shows.acast.com/rhlstp/episodes/special-episode-in-partnership-with-cancer-research-uk
