Yesterday I injured myself snowboarding. It wasn't one of those, ‘There’s a tree in front of me, I’d better turn. Hmm, I’m not turning. Oh, now I’m crashing.’ mistakes where you get to dread the possible consequences and visualize your impact before it happens; it was more like, ‘Whuh? Oh, crap.’ where you realize the moment you're about to be launched in the air that you can’t do anything but relax and experience the consequences of your lack of foresight. It’s hard to say whether it was my left foot that stayed in place while everything else twisted around it or whether the rotations were shared equally as my left foot headed clockwise while my left leg, right leg, right foot, upper body and snowboard turned counterclockwise; regardless, the end result was the same: my left ankle was not feeling so good. Snowboard boots provide excellent compression, however, so I stuck it out on the hill for a few more runs.
Excellent visibility near the top of the hill
When I got to my grandmother’s today, she presented me with a selection of traditional remedies including one that my mother translated as being for kung fu practitioners. Sweet. After a couple hours of application, it made sense- I was feeling no pain. I could get kicked, punched and whacked with a stick all day long and I was good to go as long as I had a few of these patches on. (She later re-translated it as something more along the lines of, “for holistic healing practices”. Shucks.)
So what’s wrong with no pain, you might ask. Well, I don’t consider myself a masochist, but I believe that pain exists for a reason. A bunch of reasons, actually, but one I really appreciate is the way it tells me how close my body is to working correctly again. It may be the control freak in me- when I don’t get that feedback when I’m supposed to, I start to worry. Like playing with a loose tooth, I am fascinated by seeing how far I can nudge that line of discomfort before my body tells me, ‘Hey, dummy! Stop it!’ I know I'm not the only one who thinks this way and isn't in therapy. Right?
In any case, as we did in issue 7, here’s the breakdown:
Remedy: Tienchi Huo Luo Bruise Analgesic Plaster (one of many brands of ‘plaster’)
Ailment: (from the packaging) Rheumatic pains, Muscular Aches, Sciatica, Lumbago Backache, Neuralgia, Bruise & sprain
Origin: Chinese
Directions: Cut to size, peel and stick, when they’re done, they fall off by themselves
Smell factor: none, but these were a few years old (full-strength must be incredible)
Effective?: Maybe a little too effective. Like something out of a William Gibson novel, these ‘derms’ make you feel a little detached from your body. ••••o (4 out of 5 stars)
Plaster- not just for house construction anymore. (price is in HK$)
The application- looks like fruit roll-ups, feels like Vicodin.
Posted by Seng at December 24, 2005 12:00 AM
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