At some point in the autumn my left arm started to hurt for no reason. After a while most of the pain transferred to my shoulder and neck, but the arm remained stiff and underpowered. I did nothing.
Actually I did do something – I complained. I complained to my wife, who eventually supplied me with the phone numbers and email addresses of practitioners supplied by friends of hers. I did nothing with them. Weeks passed, then months. It was beginning to seem like an infirmity I could live with.
On Monday morning the little finger of my left hand starts to tingle as I sit typing at my desk. Then it goes numb. I find my wife in the kitchen.
“My arm is dying,” I say.
“I gave you a number of a person two weeks ago,” she says.
“He was in Archway,” I say.
“This is a different person,” she says. “Who comes to your house.”
“I need intense physiotherapy,” I say. “You keep trying to send me to occultists.”
“He’s an osteopath,” she says.
“Whatever,” I say. I don’t want to dismiss the entire field of osteopathy, because I’m not entirely sure what it is.
“I can’t force you to seek help,” she says.
“What are you talking about?” I say. “That’s why I got married.”
On Tuesday morning I meet my wife at the front door as she is returning from walking the dog.
“I’m off to get my arm fixed,” I say.
“By who?” she says.
“By Tristran,” I say.
“Who’s Tristran?” she says.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “I just went online and chose the closest place.”
“That sounds responsible,” she says.
“I think it might be a dating agency,” I say, “but it’s literally just up the road.”
“Good luck,” she says.
“On your head be it,” I say.
Tristran, it transpires, is a licenced physiotherapist from New Zealand. I stand facing the wall of his treatment room while he holds my wrist and presses his thumb into my shoulder. He asks me what sort of occupational forces might have brought me to this pass.
“I just sit and type all day,” I say. “That’s it.”
“Are you left-handed?” he says.
“Yes,” I say. “And I also play a musical instrument, which might be a factor.”
“It could be,” he says. “What instrument do you play?” There is a long pause.
“The banjo,” I say.
“Are you getting any referred pain?” he says. “Headaches?”
“Sometimes,” I say. He bends my elbow one way, then the other.
“The banjo is an interesting choice,” he says.
“I was going to lie,” I say. “I almost said guitar.”
Tristran shows me a model of a human shoulder and points to the likely spot where a nerve has become trapped, thanks to a combination of poor posture and months of inattention.
“There are a few things we can try,” he says.
I arrive home an hour later holding a big rubber band. I find my wife in the kitchen.
“So?” she says.
“He needled me,” I say.
“What do you mean, he needled you?” I say.
“He stuck large needles into my flesh,” I say. “Six or seven.”
“Do you mean acupuncture?” she says.
“He didn’t use that term,” I say.
“You said acupuncture was bullshit,” she says.
“I don’t recall saying that,” I say.
“Are you cured?” she says.
“No,” I say. “I have months of expensive needling ahead of me.”
“Just say acupuncture,” she says.
“And he gave me this free rubber band,” I say. “For exercises.”
“While you’re standing there you could help me unload the dishwasher,” she says.
“Tristran wants me to take it easy,” I say.
