Date with a Turkey…

Slowly I opened my eyes and watching the ceiling I laid there for a couple of minutes wondering what was happening, only thing that I could make out at that time was the pain on the back of my head and a worse one on my left leg. Did I pass out??? It took me some time to realize what happened few minutes earlier… ***

The Day Before

A pretty good restaurant to have dinner, newly opened it seems and the ambience impressed me. I thought of dining over there for the day. I was welcomed by a fat Philippine feasting on a Turkey, and the menu for the day was decided for me. Turkey came with side few dishes, which I have never seen or tasted in my life, but who cares when it comes to food all those, which don’t bite back, are WELCOME. I started munching on my piece with all those stuff places on my table.

By the time I reached my flat I started feeling uneasy and could hear my stomach grumble in strangest of all voices. What else could be better than a good night sleep and I was on to it by no time. Turkey worked well on me, I was forced to break my sleep. I took on to my heels to the washbasin to let the turkey out which was troubling me big time. I threw up till I could taste my intestine in my mouth and gasped hard, may it was hard on me to exert the turkey out, blood pressure became low and I slipped out of control on my back with a head bang.

*** I looked around, realizing no one is there to help I tried to be on my feet with a hold on the wash basin. It looked fine for initially, but the joy was not long lasting I took a step and the pain rose from my left leg like thousand thunders and twisted my leg, I tumbled again. I could feel a broken leg, might have taken a bad blow when I fainted. I dragged myself to the front door managed to open it and moved to my bedroom to make the call. I called John who is my flat mate and uttered LEG BROKE, URGENT and kept the call. Pain started building alarmingly and leg started to swell slightly, I bite on my pain and laid still on bed. John came along with a couple of other neighbors, I was happy to see someone coming for help and explained what happened and shared my view of a broken leg.


Why is that when some is in pain and when we say what we feel people fail to accept those, broken leg theory didn’t convince them and started giving their views and experiences of a twisted ankle or so and started working on my leg and twisted slightly and that made them and the entire colony feel that something bad has happened to me. Ambulance came in no time and a doc with a stethoscope hanging around his neck bumped in to my room with two other guys carrying a stretcher. Doc examined me and stated that if it was a broken leg swelling would have been worse and pain unbearable. He made a note of all those happened and passed it on to John and directed him to keep a ice on my leg so that swelling would come down and left.

Couple of hours passed and instead of subsiding, pain became worse which made John make another call to a clinic, this time a lean guy who was supposed to be the driver of the ambulance appeared in front of me with the stretcher. John along with his friend helped the driver to lift me on my new transport medium and with much difficulty started down.. forgot to mention, I occupy the 4th floor of the apartment and elevator was not available. As I didn’t weigh much they were forced to take more than a break in between before we hit the ground.

Parking space was across the other side of the road and they were rushing me to the other side, guess what ??? they made their next stop in the middle of the highway, placing me almost in the middle of the road they gasped for air… the entire scene was so dramatic that I started laughing over looking the pain.

Clinic was pretty good I should say in infrastructure, but hospitality its dark brother. I was kept to one corner and later diagnosis came up with a twisted broken bone, doctor was quite surprised to see how I manager to make it that worse. I am not quite sure whether the complication was just because of the fall or was it a result of the work out done on me by my flat mates. But I was all set to come back to India as climbing up four floors and staying there for a couple of months in this situation was ruled out.

Back in India

Living with a broken leg is as good as hell I should say, even for fluid control I needed my dad’s help… pretty embarrassing it was.. It didn’t take me much time to decide that I am gonna do things myself… first of the act was to carry my hot water bucket to bath room… support from crutches seemed to be pretty easy but the plaster which stretched to my thighs gave me a tough time in picking up the bucket… How to sort this out? I worked out a plan… slowly kick the bucket with the other leg and move the bucked by a small distance… not bad an idea even though it would take more time… I started with small kicks pushing bucket mere centimeters… initial success gave me confidence I tried to add more distance… and finally it happened a strong kick took out my balance and crutches slipped, my butt kissed the floor in no time… I still can’t believe how the hell I came up with such an idea… already limping on one leg and for kicking I need to raise the other leg too… was it faith over my crutches or was that such a dumb idea… Anyways too good a fall it was, initial days of plaster and hope the intensity of pain is understandable… Neighbors were summoned for help…

Days passed without a bath and a time came when I could no longer bear my stink… The impact of the first fall influenced me much I presume… ‘Plaster shouldn’t be wet’ Doctors words echoed… what’s the big deal, put a plastic cover over the plaster and take bath.. So simple it was… guess what it was me and I took me not much time to make it complicated… I tried to put the plastic cover with the support on my crutches… I should remind you that the plaster extended to my thighs and I have to bend myself fully to put the plastic cover… swinging the plastic cover detached me from my left support and trying to catch that lost me my right support too…. And the result was a butt kiss… I slammed on the floor and the fall reverberated throughout my house… I still wonder why I tried this exercise standing; it was way comfortable to do this while sitting… anyways no meaning in talking about that now. Damage was done.

Days followed with more incidents… starting from a broken scale in the plaster which I used to control the itching to the autographs that my buddies presented me… now it is more than a month and plaster is half cut… I am just waiting for the rest to get removed so that I can be on my feet like good old times… one thing is decided.. No more Philippine food and no top floor apartments.