Interesting (albeit long) read of a novelist who decided to do a course in order to develop the protagonist of his latest book.
From Mr Average ... to supermanIn 16 weeks, Craig Davidson, a Canadian novelist, transformed himself into a hard-as-nails hunk by injecting illegal steroids. He loved his new body - but not the hideous side-effects. In this graphic account of being a 'roider', he recounts his hellish journey
Sunday May 18, 2008
The Observer
The needle is 21 gauge, 1.5in. A hogsticker. Forty of them arrived in a package from Greece. Ever received a package from overseas? You get that puff of air when you rip it open - air that's travelled thousands of miles. Foreign, like stepping into a stranger's house. The syringe wrapper has instructions in Italian, French, Greek and Arabic - not a word of English. But it's a needle. Operation is self-explanatory. I had put them out on my work desk a few days ago - an unignorable fact. An invitation. A threat.
Buck up, laddie. Fortune favours the brave.
What's inside looks like oily urine. 1cc of Equipoise - a veterinary drug normally injected into beef cattle - and 2cc of Testosterone Cypionate: 10 times the testosterone a man my size produces naturally in a week.
It was going into my backside; plenty of meat there. But the sciatic nerve radiates from my hips; plus, if I hit a vein I could go into cardiac collapse. I tucked a bag of frozen corn beneath my underwear to numb the injection site. The hash marks on the syringe were smudged away by my sweaty hands. That couldn't be a sign of quality medical equipment, could it?
What if I died in this shitty apartment in Iowa City? I pictured the landlord stumbling upon my body, rotten and bloated. The newspaper headline: Dumbshit Canadian Found Dead with Needle in Ass.
The needle slid in so easily I wasn't aware it'd broken the skin. I aspirated and injected into the deep tissue. When I pulled it out a pressurised stream of blood spurted halfway across the room.
Full Story:
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,2280111,00.html
