Chinese Whispers

Do you remember playing Chinese Whispers with your class in primary school? The teacher would arrange the 20-something eight-year-olds in your class into a circle and then one child would whisper a message into the next child's ear with the aim of the message travelling around the circle, one child at a time, and returning to the starting child. Theoretically the message should not change; the message at the end being an exact match for that at the beginning, though I cannot remember this outcome ever being achieved in reality. I wonder now, if I gathered a group of 20 intelligent and mature adults and played the same game whether the result would be any different? Surely the chances of a positive result would have to improve?

Let's say, for argument's sake, that this game could be played successfully with this group of intelligent and mature adults, the lines of communication still remain only as strong as the weakest link. Insert one child or incapacitated adult and everyone now thinks that Bob is a cross dresser because of his new dress, when in actual fact he was just trying to pass on the details of his new address. How very frustrating for Bob!

I have been thinking, and I have decided that our body's nervous system is just one never ending, highly important, game of Chinese Whispers. Unfortunately the game underway in my body currently involves a kid AND an incapacitated adult.

Let's start with the kid first. During the surgery I had on my knee last year a nerve was damaged and as such I am currently the (not-so) proud owner of a slowly regenerating nerve. The nerve end is lacking maturity and, similarly to the child in the game of Chinese Whispers, it is not exactly proficient at receiving and passing on messages. For the first six months after surgery this little nerve did not do much, an area of about 5cm^2 above my patella felt the same as your cheeks feel after a trip to the dentist, clumsy and numb. The kid would get the message and forget to pass it on, distracted by a ball to chase, the child would leave the game and the message would never make it to the intended end destination. Slowly my new never is gaining maturity and feeling is coming back to this area, the kid is now receiving the message and attempting to pass it on - it seems however that this child is not the world's best listener just yet. The message is distorted; a new dress instead of a new address. The nerve receives the message that my knee is in warm water and passes on that the knee is being stabbed. A message of scratching an itch is passed on as a burn. The good news is eventually this annoying little kid will be subbed out and a mature adult will fill the vacant spot...until then, like Bob, I just have to try to see the funny side of it all. 

Moving on to the incapacitated. Last week, when performing a not overly special gaston, I somehow managed to punch a nerve in my neck. One of the participants in my game of Chinese Whispers was smacked over the head and has now developed temporary dysphasia - you can see how this may cause issues in a game dependent upon selecting the right words to pass on. This incapacitated player cannot remember the words 'neck' or 'little' and as a result when the player receives the message that 'your neck is a little sore' he (yes, its a boy!) passes on 'your WRIST is VERY sore', no matter how many times the message is passed to this guy he just cannot get the words neck and little out! The good news here is that the dysphasia is only temporary and soon, with a couple more visits to the the Chiropractor and Acupuncturist, this guy will return to his old ways of passing on the message as it was passed to him.