Delayed action

[simont]

Last Sunday evening – that is, about eight and a half days ago – I was out in the street on foot, and I walked around the back of a large van parked by the roadside. I found out slightly too late and the hard way that the van had a tailboard sticking a foot out of the back at mid-shin height, which was almost invisible in the shadows. So I did the obvious thing: hopped up and down for a couple of minutes clutching my shin and cursing, then went on my way.

Since then my shin has given the occasional mild twinge in the place where I hit it, but it's looked undamaged, and not actually inconvenienced me. I had expected it to get completely better soon.

I am therefore somewhat startled, over a week later, to find that my shin has now, fairly suddenly, developed a visible bruise and become inconveniently tender to the touch. Bodies make no sense!

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I would take that to a doctor if I were you, actually - if it took eight days to come up, there might be some deeper damage.

I bloody hate those bits on vans. When they are all the way up they are at cyclist head height, and they are almost never painted a visible colour.

[gerald_duck]

The law on projecting loads is that they must be clearly marked (with white and red diagonally-striped triangles if they protrude more than two metres behind the rear lights and reflectors.

…which means one shouldn't get within two metres of what one perceives as the back of another vehicle. But that's probably good advice, anyway.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think it should be less than two metres, until it is also the law that all on-road cycle lanes are at least two metres across and it is illegal to park motor vehicles in them.

[gerald_duck]

Ow.

I've recently discovered first-hand the vagaries of internal bleeding: if you injure deep tissue, the blood takes quite a while to work its way to the surface. When I broke my arm, I lost a pint or so of blood but none of it was visible for the first two days and more was emerging for up to a week. That is, presumably, what's happening in your case, too.

The question, I guess, is whether or not the deep-tissue damage is any kind of big deal in your case; maybe it's worth seeing a doctor just to check?

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

Wot they said - get it checked, just in case it's leaking from the middle. We don't want our Simon damaged :)

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I had a similar sort of thing with my arm recently. I got the flu jab on Friday, and apart from the pain of the injection when it happened, I didn't feel any ill effects. Then when walking out in the cold yesterday my arm began to ache in the precise spot where the nurse put the vaccine.

As other people say, if your shin continues to give you trouble it might be worth having someone medical take a look at it.