Deer Hunting Diseases

I was looking over some hunting photos today on my computer when the mists of time unexpectedly swirled around my head. I know from countless prior experiences that those eddying vapors signal an acute attack of contemplation coming, so I sat back in my desk chair, braced and ready for serious pondering.

Within seconds my eyes had closed and a daydream flashed across one of the many screens of the multiplex theater inside my head (other flicks running include “Oh Look, a Squirrel” and “Should I cut my toenails when a deadline is looming in 15 minutes?” This last one is a thriller; but I digress)

Leaning back and reminiscing about my deer hunt in western Oklahoma last November, I once again pondered the grand meaning of it all. While I generally come up short in the epiphany department, this time I mused on how time spent sitting motionless is worth its weight in gold. When you force the psyche and body to reach some type of temporary peace accord despite the hustle-bustle pace of today’s algorithm-fueled life, you’ve made a great first stride toward ironing out the kinks of your overwound mind.

Medical Conditions Arise

However, there is a downside to all this forced introspection. Soon after your mind sweeps out the clutter of day-to-day worry, another more immediate problem invariably begins to surface — you have lost all feeling in your buttocks.

After approximately one hour sitting motionless in a deer stand, waterfowl blind or behind a spotting scope, your muscles and joints combine to build a catalog of pains that would do a medieval torturer proud. After having experienced perhaps thousands of such motionless hours, I’m an expert in the matter, so I’m going to offer you a brief overview of the symptoms and describe some of the more common types of maladies hunters suffer during a day afield:

• Mr. Charles Horse: Everyone is familiar with muscle cramps, but hunters take the concept to an entirely new level. The deer-blind muscle cramp is much like the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor — one minute you are sitting quietly on a Sunday morning, the next moment it feels as if Zero has strafed your calf muscle with its twin 7.7mm guns.

This condition usually results in the hunter thrashing around violently while having a “vowel movement” (involuntarily making a noise which sounds like “AaaaeeeeeEEEIIIIooOOoooyouuuuu”) and pounding his or her leg in an effort to relieve the cramp. Such gyrations are moderately effective, but there is one other scientifically-proven treatment — shouting a long string of the most-horrifying curse words you personally know. Research has shown that this is almost 5% effective in relieving pain, though it isn’t particularly helpful with hunting for the remainder of your day.

• Tingle-butt: This odd sensation begins in the posterior region and spreads slowly, like a winter frost sneaking across the landscape, to eventually transform your entire backside into something less sensate than a granite boulder.

It always happens the same way. You’re sitting quietly, deeply engaged in contemplation, when you shift your weight and suddenly realize your posterior is now absent without proper authorization or approval. Luckily, I have found one positive benefit of tingle-butt: once the bum is numb, you can sit in virtually any place, including a patch of cholla cactus, without further discomfort.

• Mystery Hand (or Foot): A close relative of tingle-butt, this problem arises when an extremity becomes completely anesthetized due to blood flow restriction or profound cold. This is usually discovered only after the deer or elk of a lifetime comes stumbling into view. As you raise your gun or bow, you realize one hand is now as helpful, shooting-wise, as a banana slug.

When suffering Mystery Hand, your shot will likely miss the animal badly and strike the farmer’s nearby grain storage bin, resulting in a fountain of soybeans spouting from the side of the metal structure to cascade into the open window of the farmer’s pickup truck parked next to it. As you’re sitting in the local jail awaiting trial for “Count I – Criminal Mischief,” you’ll have plenty of time to remind yourself: “Always Pack Those Gloves!”

• Latent Cough: Welling deep within your chest, you can feel the pressure building as a tickle forms somewhere within the respiratory passages. You initially try to ignore the sensation, but it will eventually grow into an all-consuming, burning passion that simply cannot be relieved.

When you finally let fly, nearby limbs are defoliated as every big game animal within the tri-county region flees to Canada. If you are already in Canada, they’ll be seen scurrying over the pack ice toward Russia.

Holding back a cough can prove dangerous and messy due to burst sinuses and exploding eyeballs, but there are special cough-mufflers on the market. I tried one for an entire season, but it just seemed too weird, taking the risk of being seen blowing into a large plastic cylinder resembling a lawn tractor air filter. There’s already enough bad rumors floating around about me, so I just put up with ruptured eyeballs during hunting season.

• Deep and Wide Air Gap: This problem starts small, like a tiny raindrop, and quickly grows into something more serious, like a headlong plunge into a raging whitewater river. It is caused by an item of clothing that has shifted and opened an expanse of bare flesh to the outside air. This must be dealt with quickly and decisively as big game becomes very alarmed by the sound of clattering teeth or, in warmer climes, the steady loud buzz emanating from a trillion biting insects flying in holding patterns while waiting for their turn at your precious bodily fluids.

• Bayonet Root: This is the mildly gouging root or knothole that felt insignificant when you first sat down. By the time you are ready to leave, it becomes apparent that the wood has left a permanent skin indentation that reaches all the way through to your spleen.

• Call of the Wild: This is nature’s way of reminding you of those five cups of coffee you drank while driving to the field.

• The Blind Staggers: This syndrome has one of two causes. First, and less likely, it is the result of being handed a fruit jar containing clear liquid while sitting around a campfire. If such a thing happens, and the drink tastes of old car radiator or racing fuel, you should politely avoid consumption.

The Blind Staggers is far more likely to result from the combined effects of all the previous problems noted. Whenever you stand up at the end of the hunt and discover your lower body has already taken a taxi home two hours earlier, and your resulting gait is very similar to someone who has ingested 132 beers, you’re now experiencing hunting-related Blind Staggers. The only known treatment is a medium-rare steak, a loaded baked potato and Kentucky Holy Water, applied internally, until the pain goes away.

I also highly recommend this treatment as a general preventative.

As much as I’d like to continue with this treatise on common hunting maladies, I must stop as my HVAC repairman just wobbled into the room. I need to find out why he was out hunting instead of working on my central air conditioning unit!

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