Thursday 14 July 2011

Not everyone can be Dr House

I hate Winter.

I hate the chilly weather. I hate that I have to wear jumper all day long whenever I'm staying at home. I hate that there's no heater in the house, not that I don't want to get one, it's that I'm not allowed to get one ("It might catch fire you know?" says The Landlord. Yeah, right.), and I have to wear 4 layers of clothes and jumpers that feels kinda heavy when I go to bed at night.

I hate Winter that another accident which costs me another painful leg injury has occurred. It has been exactly a year after my knees were severely damaged and fully recovered leaving the dark scars.

It was in the morning two days ago. As usual, I was embraced by the beautiful sunshine penetrating through the windows and thought that waking up in this kind of moment would be another great start for the rest of the day. Preparing myself for a hot shower, I noticed that there was some water ponding on the vinyl floor of the bathroom, which I supposed that's because of the overnight condensation of vapour. There was some, too, in the bathtub.

I turned on the hot water tap and let the water flowed until it became evidently hot (till I can see the vapour coming out from the shower) before I turned on the cold water tap to adjust the water temperature. Well, that can be said as a routine for me whenever I take a shower during Winter, and chilly Autumn.

(Here's the climax) By the time I stepped my right foot into the bathtub, immediately I knew that I stepped on the ponding water, and slipped. My reflex saved myself from falling in a way that my body was leaning backwards, which I guess my spine could potentially hit the frame of the bathtub. The very best that I did was tried to pull myself forward and reach my hand to hold on something, and that had managed to balance my body.

Try to think this whole process in a slow-mo.

The next thing I knew was that I wasn't able to control my brain to stop my left leg entering the bathtub. My left shank hit onto the bathtub frame so HARD that I could hear a "bang", and could barely scream, or even shed a tear.

I know you are giggling right now. Or laughing out loud.

But let me tell you that it ain't funny, as the HUGE momentum hit onto the front bone underneath the skin of the left shank and the ENORMOUS pain had led me get out of the bathtub quickly and squat on the floor whilst my hands pressing on the impacted area, closing my eyes tightly, and the muscles throughout my body were twitching, for about 10 minutes. Maybe it was 15 minutes or so. The water was still flowing out from the shower.

That's the kind of moment which I don't willingly to start off my day. What a silly accident! Silly me!

And here I go again, act like a personal doctor to apply immediate treatment onto the swollen area which soon became dark-green in colour. With the absence of the traditional Chinese herbal alcohol-medicine, the only way that I could use was boiled egg wrapped in cloth and constantly rolled on the leg to apply the heat that may effectively decrease the amount of blood clogging between the skin and the bone.

I explained the theory behind this traditional treatment to the doctor which I've visited today to check on it, as the redness of the impacted area (which now has a small blister on it --- "overheated" by the boiled egg) is spreading further as compared to the initial situation: "...the heat suppose to increase the blood circulation of this area... I guess...". She described that it makes sense in a way that the "heat treatment" should be applied if such injuries occurred on the joints. In fact, when I asked her what's the proper way to treat it at the very first instance of the accident, she advised that "cold treatment" is the best; put some ice into a plastic bag and hold it onto the injured area.

"Ohhh....." Now I know.

Anyway, I was told that the spreading redness is due to bacteria infection. Oh great, now I have to take antibiotics during this holiday. And the injured area is now bandaged.

Perhaps I shouldn't pretend that I knew what to do to treat those injuries that I've experienced tonnes of times before just because they did work in the past. In fact, who would ever know that a hit like that can cause infection!

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