Sunday 31 October 2010

You didn't really want to know about this, did you?

So I promised you tales of my scabby finger. Are you sure there isn't something better you could be doing than reading this stuff? Re-arranging your wardrobe in date order? Colour coding your clothes pegs? Staring into space and drooling slightly? No? Huh. Okay then.

I have had slightly dry, scaly and frankly not that attractive skin on my hands for a while. It has got worse recently, to such an extent that my right hand had been christened by my charming sons: "The Scabby Finger of Doom". I sort of ignored it and thought it would sort itself out until whatever-it-was started to affect the nail bed on my right pinky, giving me a nail worthy of the wicked queen in the Snow White cartoon. (The ugly old version, not the glam version at the start. She had fabulous nails.)

So eventually I dragged myself off to see the doctor. Our old family doctor has now retired so I saw one of the new ones. He was approximately 7 feet tall and about, ooh, 12 or 13 years old I reckon. Slightly older than the local policemen but not by much. He took one look at my hand claw and declared "Pompholyx!"

Which, as well as being an excellent word to remember for Scrabble, is what I have. It's the official term for dry, horrid, sometimes weepy and scaly scabbiness. It is also, my children and dear Husband have decided, the new name for my right hand. They reckon it sounds like a previously unknown character from Asterix. I imagine him in the background in a big black cloak, shedding fingernails and skin cells all over the place.

On the plus side, I now have ointments and moisturisers and advice on taming the pompholyx. I also have confirmation that, as I suspected, I also have vitiligo on my hands. (This causes patchy white areas where my skin won't tan and is referred to by my sympathetic family as "giraffeyness"). Combine all that with my tendency to scald, burn and otherwise scar myself when I am cooking, and I reckon I have very little chance of a career as a hand model.

Which is why I don't mind wielding very sharp knives of a Sunday afternoon in order to preare props for my children before they go out guising (which is where they are now).

And to finish, a snap taken from outside our cottage first thing this morning. This is why we keep going back (and why we can't wait for the hacking off of plaster and re-damp proofing to be finished so we can move in properly.)

9 comments:

  1. Well, I am glad you didn't injure your finger horribly, which is what I was afraid of.

    That is a very artistic pumpkin, as I hope the boys pointed out. Face AND bats. No end to your talents!

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  2. I love weird things that happen to our bodies (harmless ones, of course!). I had an eye infection last year that was caused by some crazy Adenovirus -- a robo virus basically. Very cool.

    The one thing I love more than weird viruses is that picture of the view from your cottage! Wow. Stunning. Yay for you and your whole family -- I imagine this fortune is the result of many years of hard work. Can I come for a visit?? :D

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  3. First, lovely pictures! And second, I think we must be hand twins! Since our ankles are already related it only seems fair.
    I also have a tendency to burn, cut and or pulverize myself while cooking.

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  4. And all I can boast is knobbly bits and wrinkles--well, a scar or two as well if you look past the knobbly bits and wrinkles.

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  5. Glorious pumpkin and glorious sky. Consider telling your menfolk that if they ever did anything helpful around the house, your hands might have a chance to heal.
    I've got skin like that too - sending handfuls of sympathy.

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  6. While I'm sympathetic, I am now somewhat disturbed by your graphic (yes, possibly a tad too graphic) descriptions of your hands.

    But that is a lovely photo. You mean you're never going to be in Edinburgh for a weekend coffee now that you're a bloated plutocratic two-home owner? Too good for the likes of us, eh?

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  7. I love the pumpkin pic! I'd like to say that my hands are nothing at all like yours, but as I glance down at them, the inventory of disfigurements includes numerous kitten scratches, one hole-in-the-oven-mitt burn, and nick in my thumb from cutting, of all things, butter. Sigh. In the winter I can't live without my Herbacin Kamille hand cream.

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  8. Oh no, hand of doom sounds painful! But, looking on the bright side, it could be worse. It could be arthritic as well. Now. Have I cheered you up??

    Fabulous photos of the pumpkin and the view from the but 'n' ben ... Cor, imagine seeing that view and NOT city streets ... *sigh* How glorious!

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