About Me - The early years (iii)

The next major accident occurred when I was about 9. I was trying to cycle up a slope when I flipped over, slamming my left elbow into a tree root. Now trees are very strong, but not my young bones, so I managed to dislocate my joints. I picked myself up and looked for the nasty sister. She glanced back at me and, probably feigning oblivion to my plight, turned and got into the lift herself. With that, I lifted up and pushed the heavy bicycle with my remaining good hand and trudged home alone in pain, my left arm with the useless lower half dangling limply by my side.

Emerging from the lift I faced another problem. I had to carry the bike down a flight of stairs to reach home. In my normal healthy state, carrying it with two hands was a struggle. In my current condition with only 1 good hand, the weight of the bike would have dragged me down to a sad death at the bottom of the staircase.

At nine years of age, I had no idea what a joint dislocation was. When I reached home, I told no one about the accident and instead lied abed and tried to sleep it off. Only when I woke up with the persisting pain and sense that something was quite wrong indeed did I inform my parents who hauled me off to a Chinese sinseh.

Dislocating an elbow was nothing. Having someone forcefully wrenching it back into the empty socket was one hell of an experience. My whole face turned sheet-white from the pain, tears streamed silently down my cheeks.

Lesson learned. If you dislocate something for the first time, get anesthetic.