A THR doesn't just suddenly arrive in your life, like a newborn delivered by a stork. A quantum entanglement of differing events bring you to the point of no return.
To function before it's done though, you need drugs. The pain of Arthritis cannot be imagined, described or adequately explained. I've had phantom pain in my amputated leg and thought that the sensation of having a small but determined fire-breathing dragon gnawing your foot off whilst blistering your skin with fire couldn't really be beaten.
Ha, how little I knew.
Arthritis is a pain that is so deep inside you, so impossible to reach (even laden with codeine, paracetmol, NSAIDs and anything else you can swallow and covered with heat patches, a TENS machine on Maximum Sequins Strictly rumba and a full on 'this isn't going to beat me attitude') that you would like a bear in a trap, gnaw off your own leg just to stop it hurting.
The pain is one thing; combined with a stiffness of lithospheric proportions, crepitus loud enough to startle old ladies in the street, a limp (on both sides now ffs) and the sense of weariness that should only come from a weekend of extreme partying; Arthritis is a torture of Greek Tragedy proportions.
It torments, lies to you, skewers you with a sudden spasm of spittle producing pain, then fades to hide back in its cave. It is a boggle, a demon, a spirit of evil, a troll under the bridge of my life.
