it's like a funny joke, but not

I went to the occupational therapist today for the alleged carpal tunnel syndrome that wasn't. Oh, no, it's actually GOLF ELBOW. Golf. I once swung a golf club in my grandma's yard when my uncle Tim was showing me how. That was over ten years ago. Probably twelve. Or thirteen. So one might ask, "HOW CAN YOU HAVE GOLF ELBOW?" Yes, I asked that. There's no answer. It's just an injury. Which apparently you can get even if you have never ever played golf or even WANTED to play golf.

I have it in both arms and what you are supposed to do to fix it is rest the arms. So there are all these things about ergonomic chairs and not ever typing again (and buying a keyboard which is not a laptop, laptops apparently spelling instantaneous death for your arms) and occupational therapy which for the first few weeks sounds suspiciously like sitting in a room with heat and then ice on my arm (I can do that at home, people) but is fortunately free because it occurs at the health center and I have the university insurance which covers basically everything that can occur at the health center. So, okay. So far.

The bad parts are these:

1. Lots of people end up needed surgery for this. Which I'm okay with, as long as I can watch. If I'm going to get chopped open or at least have little holes drilled in my arm, I at least want to see it happening. So if it ever comes to that, I'm only allowing surgery if I can watch.

2. To rest your arms, you are supposed to keep them straight at the elbows. She might have to make me splints to wear at night to keep my arms straight while I sleep. These would go from above my elbows down to my hands. Now, can you picture this? Because I can, and it looks rather like this:

Thank you, show.me.uk for a non-scary photo of a mummy WITH ARMS STUCK STRAIGHT OUT. Yes, this is going to be me.