The last three years, I have suffered from a strange headache which occurred sometimes under stress and physical strain. I didn't really pay that much attention to it, ordinary painkillers usually did the trick.
Last year, the headaches came more and more often, and I figured they occurred due to my former management job which
was quite unpleasant and gave me a lot of mental strain, to be frank. The aches came more and more often, and eventually I had a chronic pain in the back of my neck and had to stay home from work for a month.
Naturally, this scared me a lot. I am in good physical health and because of my commercial pilot's medical certificate, I see a physician for annual checks. I was even examined and CAT-scanned at the neurologist's - nobody could explain my condition.
During this, I noticed a "lump" on the left side of my neck. It was sometimes clearly visible in the mirror, and sometimes it shrunk to the size of a pea. I was extremely worried. My physician calmed me and told me it was a gland that just needed to be surgically removed - nothing dangerous. At the surgery, the surgeon concurred with the gland theory and said he'd snip it off and I'd be a happy camper. The thing was, when he cut my neck and took a peek, he found something else... something he could not identify! The little chunk o' tissue was sent to the Forensic dep't some three weeks ago and I got the test results yesterday. It turned out to be a foreign body rejection. That is, something entered my neck for several years ago and my body tried to get rid of it. During this time, a protective ball of tissue was formed around the foreign body. That was my lump...
"OK", I hear you mutter, "what does this have to do with WHIPS?!"
Here goes: the foreign stuff in my neck was identified as fibres. Refined plant fibres, to be exact... fibres, most likely coming off the tip of the cracker on my bullwhip! You see, for almost 10 years ago, I tried to master my first whip, a 10-footer. I learned it the hard way, lashing my back severely a couple of times, and once I managed to tangle the end of the whip around... my own neck. I remember the pain being excruciating (I actually fell down screaming) and that's when I hurt the left side of my neck, some strands of cracker fibre penetrated the skin and here we are.
When I spoke to the doctor yesterday and he told me about the fibre chunk, it all became so clear... just thought I'd share a very bizarre whip accident with you guys. Personally, I think it's pretty cool...
/SJ
It was VERY nice meeting you today and thanks for letting me hear that story live before the other gearheads. 
wow. I'm glad you're okay! Cool story---one to tell the grandkids.
