Anecdote
When I was in 5th grade, I was in a taekwondo class. My peers and I were playing ta, but I am very competitive, so Keinner tried to tag me, I dodged him and fell down because I couldn't control my speed. I tried to protect myself using my arm to absorb the impact; however, I placed it in the wrong way. My arm could absorb the impact but it sacrificed itself.
Later on, I didn’t feel my arm; though, I started to laugh nervously because that’s what I do when I’m in pain. When I get an injection, I laugh. When I hit my pinky toe, I laugh. When I broke my arm, I laughed.
As a consequence, Miss Laura took me to the nurse’s office, where she saw me and said that it was just the pain of the impact ( A spoiler alert... I broke 2 bones ). After about 15 minutes of intense pain, my parents arrived and took me to the hospital. As Barranquilla’s streets aren’t the best, the car moved a lot and that hurt me.
When I finally I arrived to the hospital, I was taken inside on a wheelchair because if I walked, I would move my arm and it hurt really a lot. The doctor said that I had to get surgery. I freaked out; despite that, I knew it was the only way. They performed an x-ray on me and saw that I had 2 broken bones.
When you are going to have a surgery, you mustn’t have eaten in the last 8 hours. My doctor asked me when did I last eat (I had a bottle of Hit juice in my hand).
They said that from that moment on, I had to wait 8 hours; even though, it would be too late at night to perform a surgery. They decided to do it the next morning. In summary, I spent like 18 hours without eating and with 2 broken bones (Probably the most horrible thing I’ve ever lived through).
The next morning, I got the surgery and it went well, so I was sent back to my house. I spent 1 month at home and then I had to go to the hospital to see how my arm was doing. They found out that my broken bone moved from where they left it and that I had to get another surgery. I got it but this time it was different. The first surgery was without putting nails inside me. This time, they put nails inside my arm.
The first night at home, I almost fainted due to the intense pain. The first days after a surgery are always tough. Moving on, in about 2 months, the doctor extracted the nails and stitches from me and I started going to a physiotherapist.
In the beginning, I couldn’t move my fingers and when I tried to close my hand, it just started to shake, but after about 2 very painful months of physiotherapy, my arm completely healed. In total, this whole painful thing took about 5 months.
By Simón Duarte, Step 9 Blue
