Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Drink to my bones

WARNING: LONG POST

The fact that a lot people use Facebook, Twitter, Blogs etc to confess their love for their nephews, nieces & children is finally getting to me. Facebook has the bad habit of displaying on my page what people throw up on theirs. "Pappu ate his first bogger today" or "My little one makes cute faces while taking a shit while my elder one makes castles of poo". Since I do not have a child and I would rather play catch with my nephew than upload his photographs, I have decided to tell you the story about my left leg which is way more important than all your children put together.

Summary: Broke 2 bones above my left ankle while playing football. My parents and wife were not in town. I wasn't carrying my wallet or cellphone. It was a complex fracture. Had surgery. Have 2 steel plates and 14 screws in my leg now. Your 3 year old niece can beat me at the 100 mts.

The point is, extended periods of inactivity slows time down. One can do nothing else except think. There are a lot of things that happened during this time and here goes the summary.

1) The incident: We are a bunch of unfit, slaves to the corporate world dudes who play football 1-2 times a week. When you play 5 a side games once or twice a week the process is as follows when it comes to on-field injuries :
a) Evaluate
b) Play doctor
c) Argue

a) Evaluate: The first thing that you do is evaluate the injury. Not out of concern but to decide if we can roll this dude outta the ground and continue with the game. "Kya hua" and " Can you continue playing" are the questions I was asked. Also keep in mind if 1 guy drops out, you are playing 4 on 5 which isn't easy.

b) Play doctor: Any footballer worth has salt will lie about most of the injuries he has had and claim to have extensive knowledge about sports injuries. He will also diagnose & give a solution to your injury. This is how the conversation went:
Me: Fk dude. Think I broke my leg
The Dr: No dude, its a dislocated ankle
Me: I know it man. I heard the snap
The Dr: Quit being a bitch. I have dislocated my ankle before. I can put it back in place.
Me (in total disbelief): Do you see the broken bone jutting outta my socks 4 inches above my ankle? Broken bones asshole
The Dr: I disagree. You are in pain and cannot think straight
My advise is to stay the hell away from the on-field doctor.

c) Argue: After the diagnosis is labeled serious the arguments started. Mode of transport, how should I be picked up and what doctor/hospital to go to. Everyone claimed to have the best knowledge about everything.

All in all the 3 steps turn out to be a dick measurement exercise amongst those present.

2) The Hospital: After much argument and yelling I was bundled into an auto and we went to Joshi Hospital. This place is the stuff nightmares are made of. 7 footballers, my broken foot and I enter the hospital. I was put on a stretcher while a friend carefully removed my football shoes. The ward boys from hell came to rip my socks off when I politely requested them to cut the socks rather than rip it off and permanently damage my leg. They concurred. Then right outta the movies I was stretched off to the X-ray room hitting every corner and door on the way there. The ward-boy promptly taps me on my injured leg to tell me to move onto the X-ray table.

The attendant was a cock-eyed, salivating slob who had been pushed around all his life. All 8 of us took an instant disliking for his. He kept telling me that surgery was required and that I should get admitted. We did not trust him and I decided to call someone else I knew. The clincher is....The slob refused to give me a painkiller till I agreed to get admitted in the hospital. I did not. He also made me write and sign a note saying I left the hospital of my own free will. He also yelled at me for the bad handwriting---I wrote the note while on a stretcher, facing up, with no support for the paper and 2 broken bones. Some people

Overall it was an insane experience. What happened after I shifted into Kelkar hospital is like a dream. The friendly professional doctors, the morphine like painkiller shots and the 2 people holding me down while the doctor put on a temporary cast makes me laugh now. Am on the way to recovery...

Note:
- Broken bones do not hurt as much as I thought
- My ass still hurts from the 10 injections I had to take
- I have not put on any weight
- Thank the guys who helped me out
- Thanks to a friend....she know who she is

10 comments:

as_him said...

So u sat out of the World Cup with the likes of Ballack and Beckham :)

Reminds me of my foot ol' days. Being a vegetable is kinda ok, but its a lot of work for the ones taking care of u..

I wish them all the best and speedy recovery to u.

Anonymous said...

hope u r better now! women have to go through so much more...yet they go about it quitely, however men...can't do without making noise! u write well though :)
Wish u a speedy recovery..
Cheers! Neha Sethi Tandon

Satyajit said...

Ashim:
You just made my day. Am a very sweet tempered patient...thats what I have been told.

Neha:
Thank god there were no women on the field...else I would be lying there being told how my pain is NOTHING compared to theirs :-P
Thanx

Vaish said...

Good to read a post of yours after such a long time! You actually managed to cheer up my otherwise lousy evening. Hope you're foot's better now. I guess seeing the funny side to things always helps :) And I have said this tons of times before...you should be a writer!

Just A Passerby said...

Hilarious stuff. My favorite part was the stretcher ride to radiology. LMAO I remember when I used to work in the recovery room I had to transport patients frequently up to their rooms, etc. following their release from our area. It took me a lot longer to get the knack for steering, stopping, reversing &/or maneuvering into packed elevators, etc. than I'd ever anticipated that it would. It definitely takes some getting used to, I'm sure I subjected some poor people to similar experiences as the one that you had while navigating stretchers through the mazes of long hospital corridors.

Oh and the FB content nearly had me in tears laughing at. It's sooo true too. I'm much happier now without having any other "social networking" accounts, besides this one. If this even qualifies.

I concur on two points the reader wrote in her comment prior to mine: 1. Reading this one did cheer me up tonight, I'm much grateful for that b/c I've been sick for several weeks myself, (nothing compared to your experience!) which was drastically complicated further after one of the antibiotics I was prescribed caused my skin to erupt into huge sores all over my arms, hands, neck, face...face! Ick. I swear it looks like I have a raging case of leprosy going on right now. Grrrr...frustrating...I was in need of a good LOL.
2. You do have a talent for writing sarcastic/witty material. It's why I chose to subscribe to your blog in the first place :)

Hope you're well on the mend from your broken ankle! FOURTEEN screws??!? That's a lot of hardware. On the bright side, going through all of the security scans at the airports will always bring you lots of fun and excitement...for the rest of your life. LOL

Just A Passerby said...

PS please extend my deepest sympathies to your poor wife. I'm sure she's about to pull all of her hair out of her head after having to listen to the big baby wah-wah man, who's been anchored to the living room sofa with the big screen tv remote permanently attached to one of his hands, since the day he got home from the hospital!

hahaha

Satyajit said...

Vaish:
Spank you very much...Good to know I made you otherwise dull day better. And I have said it a dozen times before....I cannot be a writer.

JAP:
Thank you very much.
Yikes....I pity the fool who was on a stretcher navigated by you :-). Hope you are better now....
My wife is a wise women. She left for a conference after I had recovered and settled in a bit....

Anonymous said...

You should have mentioned that you ALMOST climbed a flight of stairs on the night of the finals. :-)

Maybe that's another blog post.

Lucky that you have good friends around.. :-)

Sorry for being late in reading your blog despite being asked so many times.


Super duper sorry again.

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Anonymous said...

Very nice... some where its tuoches me... The day of college BMCC, during holli they way we use to make fire... watching tv in the tv room.. playing football in front of the Hostel.. n the way Imran and Shukhi bhayia use to chase the ball... Is something we r missing in life or every one is running way from themselves or simply chasing life... I dont remember when last I have made chk n mutton for my friends... or when I have done my last cooking....