Intermittent Flirtations

It's funny how kids swarm around points of interest. Little people everywhere wanting to know 'Why is that guy on a stretcher?' To be honest I felt the same way. The question over what I had done would persist only as a grand delusion. I pretended things would be fine, that I would be up and running in a couple of weeks. Without a firm diagnosis it would have been presumptive to accept that my knee and life in the short-term had been wrecked.

Right?

I'm not sure I ever truly believed that. Over the weeks and months following January 31st the internet became a tool to find out what exactly rupturing an ACL meant for me. Preparing for the worst scenario in this case made the most sense.

I was transferred from the field to an ambulance and given laughing gas. At this point in time I attempted a brave show of manliness by trying some comedy while asking my new ambulance friend questions one might ask over tea. I wasn't too successful however - the pain, which I was asked to describe on a scale of 1 to 10, was tipping out at 9 and 3/4 thanks to the increased pressure on my knee joint every time the ambulance slowed down. The nitrous oxide took effect on every other part of my body in a tingling sensation but my knee stayed stalwart in its persistent reminder of pain.

At the hospital I was passed over to a nurse (male). By this time I was in my comedy grove and wanted to say that nurses were much prettier on television than in real life. His business-like air and defeated sense of purpose stole the words from my mouth and I was wheeled into a room to await an x-ray. My brother turned up almost immediately (he was playing soccer with me), and I think he had already called Mum and Dad but we talked to them again and Dad turned up shortly thereafter.

*****
Soliloquy: My brothers and I have a lot to answer for. Collectively we've shortened our parents lives, particularly that of our Mum's, by around 20 or more years. The number of serious injuries and surgeries required between us is long and illustrious and the fact both Mum and Dad still have natural colour in their hair is pretty amazing.

That most people haven't broken a bone in their life still astounds me.
*****

Hospitals are gruelling places. I'm not sure I can put in words the indelible experience I had but two things in particular characterised my short-lived stay.

Ichi) The gurney operator who wheeled me to and from my x-ray looked absolutely smashed - 20 years and 20 drinks and I still wouldn't look as crumpled as this guy did. Red eyes, red face, and an air of 'get me the fuck out of here' hung about his neck. That's not to say he was unkind. Au contraire, he was moustached, stocky, and could have been a friend's cool dad. He had just started another long shift out of innumerable days work and reminded me of a rock in a river, slowly giving his soul to a never ending flow of humanity passing through his workplace.

Ni) When I was wheeled out of my x-ray I was stowed in an alcove where a good-looking nurse (female) accompanied a man not much younger than myself. The catch was he was lying prone with a brace wrapped around his neck. I'll admit my thoughts had been highly self-involved up until this point, and perhaps they still were; I don't know if I cried for him, myself, or at my selfishness. It was a sad slap from Reality and one which brought to sharp relief my own situation. Whatever happens to me, there are people who are experiencing loss greater than I'll ever care to imagine or experience. Facing such a reality personally in such a desperate time was truly humbling.

I was placed in a corridor afterwards. There were no rooms left and the doctors were trying to make space for people in greater need than my own. With no bone shards populating my x-ray they had done all they could for this chump.

My Dad and I left with no fanfare, we were forgotten amongst a sea of the woe begotten, broken occasionally by wraith-like hospital workers darting amongst the swell.

*****

I was at the beginning of what has and continues to be a journey. Moments happen in life, they are neither good nor bad, and you take from them what you will. This was an awakening of sorts, not a happy one but a profound one. How profound?

I'm still figuring it out.