Bendy Fish
I was on a 8 day liveaboard doing five dives a day in the Dutch Antillies, beginning at St Maartin and ending at St Kitts taking on Saba and Statia along the way.
On the seventh day my left hand and arm started feeling a little sore and itchy
I never really thought much about it until I returned home and went to the office the next day
Over the next week my hand got worse …. I could not type, I could not use my mouse in my left hand. Worse than that was that I could not hold my weights while working out in the gym and I couldn’t throw a punch in Combat. I was driving with my right hand and the thumb of my left hand which was not as bad as the others digits
My fingers were swollen, discoloured, tender to touch, I couldn’t bend them, my hand was very sore and still itchy
By the second week I realised that there was something seriously wrong
I was going down the route of having touched something and getting poisoned. So after seeking advice from random people I was sitting at my desk in the office with my hand in a mug of boiling hot water or a glass of ice water. I was rubbing tiger balm into my fingers and rubbing oil into them. But nothing tooked the pain away!
It was getting worse and now I could not bend my fingers or make a fist
I went to Ashford A&E and saw a nurse who used to work for the Navy in Weymouth then up in Leciester near stoney and she old me that she had seen a lot of diving related injuries but decided that I had been bitten by a spider
I went to my local doctors surgery and the GP I saw wanted to send me to the Centre for Infectious Diseases and International Health, but I had to have a blood test first
After five blood tests I was told they were all negative and there was nothing wrong with me
On the way back to the office I called Gary at Slough Sub Aqua. After I described my symptoms, he said ….
‘you have a bend!’
I said, ‘no I haven’t!’
He said, ‘yes you have!’
I said, ‘no I haven’t!’
He said, ‘yes you have!’
I said, ‘no I haven’t!’
He said, ‘you’re in denial!’
Gary gave me the number of the Hyperbaric in St John’s Wood and told me to call them
I still wasn’t convinced so I took a detour and stopped by Runnymead EuZone
There was a closed sign in the window, but I could see lights on and the dooor was slightly open
I decided to call them, and a really nice lady asked me to come in as they were doing stock taking
She took one look at me and dialed the number of the Hyperbaric for me
