Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Recovery Period

I'd wanted to be able to see comments so I could catch up on all the Shout-Outs I have left to do, but it's been ages since I've been able to see any... Anyway, I can only assume that everyone was being kind and supportive to me over my thumb, heh ^_^; Being There... There's something about hospitals that's hard to discern. To me, it's like a strange kind of serenity that's completely filled with nervous anticipation and memories of past experiences. We (my mum and I) sat in the waiting room for about ten minutes before I got called up to the nurse for an initial assessment. She said I should head off to X-Ray to check it wasn't broken, no bone chips had come off, etc. She also explained to me that I could have the nail drilled if I chose to. I didn't realise there was a choice, heh. Rather sheepishly, I asked whether the procedure would help alleviate the pain a bit, and she said that yes, it would in the long-run. She also explained that it would hurt, and asked me if I wanted to go ahead with it. I said yes, even though I didn't want to. A guy in the X-Ray department recognised me by my jacket, heh- he works in the Tesco petrol station in Chichester. It's funny that when you're in a similar situation to someone else, even when it's something like a broken limb, you find a common sense of understanding with which to talk to one another. I suppose being hurt gives you a different perspective on things, if only for a little while. Anyway, the X-ray went really quickly. Everyone had pretty much the same reaction when I told them how it happened: "I was hit by a sword." Reaction A: "Ooh, that's interesting." Reaction B: "Ah, now that's unusual." Reaction C: "Judging by your jacket, that doesn't surprise me" I'd literally just sat back down in the main reception area after dropping off my scans that I was called back up again, this time for the procedure proper. "Wait, I forgot my block of wood!" I was really nervous about all this. I had no idea what kind of machinery they'd use. I half-expected a pillar drill-esque piece of apparatus linked to a vacuum pump to suck everything out. The nurse sat me down and returned with a tiny (albeit incredibly sharp) needle and a piece of gauze. She took my thumb, explained what she was going to do, and started drilling the needle into my thumbnail. To begin with I couldn't feel anything much, but I knew that any moment I was going to be 'immersed in some horrible, searing pain'. I began to feel nauseous, and she asked me if I wanted her to continue. I said yes, but immediately afterwards I felt as if I was going to faint. Head-between-the-knees treatment for me, then. It was a horrible, body-churning sensation more than anything else. I'd meant to bring my NEO Magazine to help me take my mind off it, but it just slipped my mind. While I continued trying to squish the blood through the hole in my nail, the nurse went to get me a cup of tea to alleviate my wooziness. She said I was doing very well and was brave to have decided to go through with it in the first place, which surprised me as I thought I was actually being pretty useless. Still, once we got to a point where I could do the rest myself, I went back home, gauze in hand, and ready to start tomorrow's tournament... Lessons Learned? No, I didn't fight. My thumb wouldn't fit inside the gauntlet, it was so swollen >.> I spent most of the time marshalling; telling people to stay behind the blue rope lest they get smashed by a knight. It started raining pretty heavily, though, which meant that our second tournament was delayed and that there were very few members of the general public to watch anyway. Once the ground had dried off Duncan and I played 'Paddlewhack', which equates to a very early version of Badminton. Soon afterwards, though, our game was interrupted by the advent of... TWATBALL! Much like rounders/baseball, there are four bases (we used bucklers) set up in a square on the field. There's a bowler, who throws a ball (duh) and a batsman, who hits the ball with a warhammer. Once the batsman has hit the ball with the warhammer, it's his objective to run around the bases while the fielders pelt him with fruit and vegetables- if he gets hit, he's out, and if he manages to get round all four he wins a point. Nobody ever got all the way round, heh. We did run out of vegetables, though, so we had to resort to rugby tackling instead. Reenactors are not people you joke around with when it comes to tackling, either. I feared for my life at certain points ^_^; It was really good fun, though. And my thumb remained safe, heh. Now, it's looking incredibly black and is one-and-a-half times the size of my normal thumb. The nail feels like it's starting to dislocate itself now. I'll admit that I'm not looking forward to the twelve or so months it'll take to grow back, but it could have been a lot worse. Now, I have thingies to do. Thank you, everyone ^_^

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