The Gravest Injury
Blog is such a great thing. I can now write excruciatingly detailed accounts of my life stories just once, and bore all of my curious friends to their collective tears. That is efficient and satisfying.
So today I'd like to tell y'all about the gravest injury I've ever suffered.
It was a Monday afternoon in October, 1987, not long after I started going to the afore mentioned middle school. I was on my way home from a day of school, walking with a friend. We had finished half of the 20 minute walk and got to the downtown area of our small factory town. There was a garden right next to the pavement we were walking on, separated by a fence.
Now let me try to describe the fence in detail. First, there was a low concrete divider on the ground, about a foot high and a foot thick. Upright tapering cast iron rods, painted dark green, grew out of it like giant needles. They are lined up in the center of the divider's top surface, leaving a six inch wide strip of concrete on each side. Now don't you say "that's just a normal picket fence!", it is much more vicious in my mind's eye.
I stepped on the divider and started walking on it. Standing on the divider, the top of the iron rods came to about the same height as my ribcage (don't wince). So picture this: I was walking facing forward, the fence was right next to me on my left side. I brushed against it with every step I took. To keep my balance, my hands held the iron rods as I moved forward. Think about the plane defined by the fence. Of my whole body only my left arm is over the fence and on the other side of the plane.
At one point I slipped and fell off the divider. No big deal. It's only a foot high. Didn't even hurt. I was about to walk on, only to find that my pink blouse was caught by one iron rod. Ugh! Mom was not going to be happy about this. I asked my friend to help me. We studied the relative position of the rod and my blouse for a long five seconds, and exchanged looks.
The rod did not only catch my blouse sleeve, it also pierced my upper left arm.
My luck was in. The hospital was just across the street. I told my friend to first get a doctor, then go tell my parents. She ran.
Soon some onlookers gathered around me. I was pinned there (no pun intended) like a deer caught by a trap, and they talked about me as if I couldn't hear them. Adults shaked their heads and sighed, a teenage boy joked with a girl; he asked her whether she'd like to be in my place. I saw and heard them all but felt nothing. No anger, no shame, no anxiety. I was concentrated on one thing: use my left hand to pull off one leaf from the shrub growing on the other side of the fence. I wanted to see whether I could still move my fingers. I could. I relaxed and waited.
The surgeon on duty ran across the street and came to my aid. He was young and handsome in his white lab coat. He examined my arm calmly. (I love calm men.) He held my arm on both sides of the wound, applied pressure to prevent excessive bleeding, and steadily pulled up till my arm was freed. We briskly walked across the street into the emergency room.
He sat me on a stool and started clearing my surface wounds with alcohol. I remember hoping that he would pass a cotton ball soaked in alcohol through my piercing wound, but he didn't. I looked squarely at my wounds. They were not too grisly. From the larger entry wound, I could see greenish blood vessels under the flesh.
My dad arrived. Now I got nervous. I thought he was going to scold me. He did not. He sat next to me, surprisingly pleasant. He chatted with me about unimportant stuff, till the doctor asked me to move my fingers for him. I sensed the tension in both men immediately. This was the moment of truth. But I had already known the truth. I obliged and they were relieved. I saw what the doctor wrote on my medical record. "Piercing wound 10 cm long. Finger movement fine".
Soon the doctor was ready to stitch me up. My dad discussed about anesthesia with him. The decision was to use none, my dad didn't want my head to be messed up (besides the arm). So I lied down on the operation table, watching every move of my doctor. The lighting was very bright. Every sight etched into my memory. The needle was smaller than a sewing needle, shiny and slighly curved. The thread was black, and looked no different from ordinary thread. A tiny drop of disinfection fluid precariously hang on to the needle for a second, then slided down the thread. The doctor used a small pair of pliers to hold the needle. When it went in, I felt pain for the first time that day. Somehow my brain was able to block out any distress signal my arm must have been sending. Three stitches for the entry wound, one for the exit wound. The doctor carefully aligned the skin and applied pressure using the pliers. He promised me the scars would be smooth and minimal. He didn't lie.
My mom arrived when I was still lying there. I didn't see her. She stood at the head of the operation table and fainted at the sight of blood. My grandma escorted her out.
The doctor put bandage on me, prescribed 3 tetanus shots separated by 15 mintes each, and told us how lucky I was. The artery wasn't hurt, or I might die of excessive bleeding in minutes. The nerves weren't hurt, or I might lose sensation/motion control in my left arm. The rod went through my arm on the right side of the humerus (upper arm bone). Had it gone through on the outer side, my arm was so thin that the flesh might have been torn apart. The scare talk went on and on. I wasn't impressed at that time. The gravity of the situation only seeped in long after the wound had healed.
I went home with my parents and grandma. I still felt no pain. People said the pain might set in that night. I did wake up at 1am that night, demanding a bowl of porridge. I was so hungry. Once my wish was granted, I sank back into dreamless sleep.
The date was October 19, 1987. Does it ring a bell? Probably just as I was going home from the hospital, the US stock market entered the Black Monday of 1987, experiencing the largest single-day percentage loss ever, 22.6%. Just thought you would be interested.
My arm healed with no complications. I didn't feel any pain in the whole process. It led me to secretly hope for a medication-free child birth some 16 years later. How wrong I was. But that belongs to another story.
I really enjoyed talking to all of you this way. So until next time, then.
So today I'd like to tell y'all about the gravest injury I've ever suffered.
It was a Monday afternoon in October, 1987, not long after I started going to the afore mentioned middle school. I was on my way home from a day of school, walking with a friend. We had finished half of the 20 minute walk and got to the downtown area of our small factory town. There was a garden right next to the pavement we were walking on, separated by a fence.
Now let me try to describe the fence in detail. First, there was a low concrete divider on the ground, about a foot high and a foot thick. Upright tapering cast iron rods, painted dark green, grew out of it like giant needles. They are lined up in the center of the divider's top surface, leaving a six inch wide strip of concrete on each side. Now don't you say "that's just a normal picket fence!", it is much more vicious in my mind's eye.
I stepped on the divider and started walking on it. Standing on the divider, the top of the iron rods came to about the same height as my ribcage (don't wince). So picture this: I was walking facing forward, the fence was right next to me on my left side. I brushed against it with every step I took. To keep my balance, my hands held the iron rods as I moved forward. Think about the plane defined by the fence. Of my whole body only my left arm is over the fence and on the other side of the plane.
At one point I slipped and fell off the divider. No big deal. It's only a foot high. Didn't even hurt. I was about to walk on, only to find that my pink blouse was caught by one iron rod. Ugh! Mom was not going to be happy about this. I asked my friend to help me. We studied the relative position of the rod and my blouse for a long five seconds, and exchanged looks.
The rod did not only catch my blouse sleeve, it also pierced my upper left arm.
My luck was in. The hospital was just across the street. I told my friend to first get a doctor, then go tell my parents. She ran.
Soon some onlookers gathered around me. I was pinned there (no pun intended) like a deer caught by a trap, and they talked about me as if I couldn't hear them. Adults shaked their heads and sighed, a teenage boy joked with a girl; he asked her whether she'd like to be in my place. I saw and heard them all but felt nothing. No anger, no shame, no anxiety. I was concentrated on one thing: use my left hand to pull off one leaf from the shrub growing on the other side of the fence. I wanted to see whether I could still move my fingers. I could. I relaxed and waited.
The surgeon on duty ran across the street and came to my aid. He was young and handsome in his white lab coat. He examined my arm calmly. (I love calm men.) He held my arm on both sides of the wound, applied pressure to prevent excessive bleeding, and steadily pulled up till my arm was freed. We briskly walked across the street into the emergency room.
He sat me on a stool and started clearing my surface wounds with alcohol. I remember hoping that he would pass a cotton ball soaked in alcohol through my piercing wound, but he didn't. I looked squarely at my wounds. They were not too grisly. From the larger entry wound, I could see greenish blood vessels under the flesh.
My dad arrived. Now I got nervous. I thought he was going to scold me. He did not. He sat next to me, surprisingly pleasant. He chatted with me about unimportant stuff, till the doctor asked me to move my fingers for him. I sensed the tension in both men immediately. This was the moment of truth. But I had already known the truth. I obliged and they were relieved. I saw what the doctor wrote on my medical record. "Piercing wound 10 cm long. Finger movement fine".
Soon the doctor was ready to stitch me up. My dad discussed about anesthesia with him. The decision was to use none, my dad didn't want my head to be messed up (besides the arm). So I lied down on the operation table, watching every move of my doctor. The lighting was very bright. Every sight etched into my memory. The needle was smaller than a sewing needle, shiny and slighly curved. The thread was black, and looked no different from ordinary thread. A tiny drop of disinfection fluid precariously hang on to the needle for a second, then slided down the thread. The doctor used a small pair of pliers to hold the needle. When it went in, I felt pain for the first time that day. Somehow my brain was able to block out any distress signal my arm must have been sending. Three stitches for the entry wound, one for the exit wound. The doctor carefully aligned the skin and applied pressure using the pliers. He promised me the scars would be smooth and minimal. He didn't lie.
My mom arrived when I was still lying there. I didn't see her. She stood at the head of the operation table and fainted at the sight of blood. My grandma escorted her out.
The doctor put bandage on me, prescribed 3 tetanus shots separated by 15 mintes each, and told us how lucky I was. The artery wasn't hurt, or I might die of excessive bleeding in minutes. The nerves weren't hurt, or I might lose sensation/motion control in my left arm. The rod went through my arm on the right side of the humerus (upper arm bone). Had it gone through on the outer side, my arm was so thin that the flesh might have been torn apart. The scare talk went on and on. I wasn't impressed at that time. The gravity of the situation only seeped in long after the wound had healed.
I went home with my parents and grandma. I still felt no pain. People said the pain might set in that night. I did wake up at 1am that night, demanding a bowl of porridge. I was so hungry. Once my wish was granted, I sank back into dreamless sleep.
The date was October 19, 1987. Does it ring a bell? Probably just as I was going home from the hospital, the US stock market entered the Black Monday of 1987, experiencing the largest single-day percentage loss ever, 22.6%. Just thought you would be interested.
My arm healed with no complications. I didn't feel any pain in the whole process. It led me to secretly hope for a medication-free child birth some 16 years later. How wrong I was. But that belongs to another story.
I really enjoyed talking to all of you this way. So until next time, then.
posted by moira at 10:14 PM
2 Comments:
We have all been idiots one way or another; furtunately, not many around us have been killed. You are putting a hell lot of details here :D
when i said that she was a good story-teller, i didnot lie.
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