It was Sunday. I was cleaning my living room and kitchen. Everything almost done. Finally, I have to throw some trash and I am done. I took the trash bag out of the trash can, packed it and headed to throw it in the dumpster. I opened the lid of the dumpster and was swinging my trash bag into the dumpster. I think the force was not enough so, I hit the side of the dumpster. Suddenly, my right hand index finger is bleeding. I don’t particularly remember what went wrong but I ran to my room to see if I have some bandaids. I knocked my flatmate door to ask for bandaid. All this time I was putting pressure in my index finger with my thumb. When, I tried to lift my thumb to put the bandaid, the whole muscle opened up and I could see the bones as well. I knew this was trouble. It was Sunday so I couldn’t go to the University health center, so I went to the nearest hospital. Someone, took me to the ER. One of the medical practitioner came and looked into my finger, he clicked some pictures and sent them to the doctor. He then told me that I have actually sliced my ligament so I need to go through a reconstruction surgery. He scheduled the surgery for the next day and sent me home with some painkillers and my finger strapped with some support.
Going through the surgery was not a new thing for me so I was not that worried about it. I was worried about telling it to everyone. First, my mother, she would be super worried. Second, my professor, I still had to complete some research work. Finally, to my manager at internship, I was about to start an internship from May 24th. On top of that I was planning to move out to another place by the end of the month.
But, then when you are in immense pain, nothing else matters. I woke up next morning and went to the hospital, got the surgery done and returned back to home. Nothing was more important than healing, the pain was unbearable most of the time. I also have the habit of talking to myself which certainly helped. I would often say to myself, “Anup, you have been though worse, so just be calm, this shall pass too”.
It took a lot of physical therapy sessions for my finger to become functional. It’s not normal as before but like the doctors said “This is your new normal”, so I guess it’s fine now.
In the end, pain reminds you of yourself, nothing else matters other than you.
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