Blisters

Blisters are about the pleasure of pain!
It comes with rowing like bugs in your teeth comes with road-biking and rugburn comes with late-night after-party wrestling. What I mean by this is somewhat in the realm of how good it feels to finish a hard day at the job; You feel achy and sore and don't want to do anything. But, the feeling is somewhat silently wonderful.

Blister defined, is a small fluid filled pocket, usually in the upper layers of skin. It is caused by forceful friction, burning or freezing. Most blisters are filled with serum or plasma, but some can be filled with blood or pus if they become infected. An interesting factoid of blisters is that the word came from Old-Middle Dutch "bluyster" from the 14th century meaning leprous nodule; a fluid-filled cyst due to leprocy.

Now, is it because I have a half Dutch ancestry that I'm more inclined to blisters, or that I have the early signs of a rare but ever-present Leprosy infection. I joke, but I do have a continual conveyer-belt supply of fresh blisters almost on a daily basis. Just as a gloriously deep blister heals, the broad scar tissue surface buckles under the pressure of another tectonic plate shift and a new blister forms.

All rowers have them - it is a common thread of discussion; blister comparisons. I recently saw my National Team friend, Jerry Brown, and his hands were much better worse than mine, and his hands were thick with callousing. It makes me not worry as much. The only real issue is the stinging pain after the blister bursts and it comes in contact with water. I catch myself screaming very high-pitched in the shower after early morning rows, just after a new blister opened up.

There are many types of blisters, from small and almost camoflage blisters, there can be long and broad painless skin flaps, all the way to swollen, fluid filled pulsating painful ones. Just don't burst them if you can avoid it. I feel, the skin will heal up thicker underneath by the time it peels off.