Ah, blogging is a dying art. I haven't blogged in ages and I'm only writing this so I have some sort of journal to keep of the key events of the year.
Anyway, last week I was at my company's 2-day retreat, and the most amazingly freak accident happened to me.
So we were playing volleyball, and then captain's ball on the (semi-wet) grass field next to our chalet. Perfectly fine. Nothing much happened, we had fun, my team won (I think. or lost. I can't remember), and we finished.
Then as everyone began leaving, Eri and I were still lagging behind and hitting the volleyball around for fun. Ho hum. Everything's fine.
-ominous music plays-
Then eri hits a stray ball and it rolls a short distance away. No biggie, I shuffle-jog-walk towards the ball to retrieve it.
And then.
I slipped.
The grass was kinda wet, so I slipped and my feet came up under me. My right toe jammed hard into a raised piece of concrete (the kind that stops cars at carparks). I saw it before I felt it.
[caption id="attachment_1977" align="alignleft" width="300"]
What I saw was more gory than this[/caption]I sat there for a few moments in shock, as I didn't feel that much pain but it LOOKED really really bad. Eri didn't realize the severity of it too as she thought I just landed on my butt, until I didn't get up for the next 10 seconds. I didn't move, I just looked at my toe, looked at her, looked back at my toe. She ran over.
"Oh my god!!" -eri
I gingerly got up, and began limping towards the chalet. The wound was bleeding, and the injury looked horrific. The picture you see above is much later, after it was cleaned up. At that point it was just dirty and bloody and looked bad.
I reached the chalet house, and I was focusing intently on not letting my blood drip all over the floor. I hobbled over to the toilet to wash it, not making a fuss at all. No one knew.
I think eri went to get help / inform some people, as soon people came to me as I was wincing in the toilet as the running water wash over the fresh wound. Soft cries rang out as I heard calls for a first aid kit. After washing it for a few minutes, I hobbled back out and sat down, as my colleague helped me to clean it abit with antiseptic lotion and wrapped it. The small crowd was dispersed quickly as they told them not to crowd around me.
'Does it hurt?' - vincent, as he poured the antiseptic lotion on the wound.
By right, it should. It should have stung like a bitch. But I honestly felt nothing. I shook my head bravely, and kept watching him treat my wound. Someone told me to look away, but I just looked calmly, unflinching, as he touched my wound and tried to clean it up. I don't know if I was more in shock or if I was just like that normally. I don't betray expression easily if I didn't want to.
I got a ride to A&E at CGH, but I decided not to wait after seeing the 3 hour waiting time. I went back to a GP near my house to get it assessed, didn't trust that assessment, so went to a polyclinic the next day and got some decent supplies to bandage/treat my wound over the next few weeks
Yes, the nail was flipped back 180degrees. And it was really hard, stuck there, so I can't just detach the nail. This morning I clipped it down to about 1mm after I changed my bandage.
I consulted Lee Tze from church who was really nice and called me up after I Whatsapped him the pictures and told him what happened. He is a Podiatrist (in fact, the first podiatrist in Singapore :O ) and he was patient and thorough in his advice to me as I fired off questions about what to do with it, how to handle it, how long would it take to recover, etc.
According to him, it would take 1-4 months for my nail to grow back to normal :( And in that time I have to avoid sports / running / swimming. Talking to him really allayed my fears as I was wondering how the nail was going to grow when it was flipped backwards like that. Thank God for church members who are doctors! :)
So yup. That is the story of my horrific toe nail injury. And how I am sidelined for a few months from sports :( Sucks. Also, time to get a downpes to skip the IPPT/RT this year ;)
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