when was the last time you did something for the first time?- Contd.

Yeah so that was the scan and the prognosis was weren't very good. See what happened was, about a year back, March 22 2004 to be precise i had a bad fall from the scooter, and I have decided to come clean about it. It was my fault. totally. really tired and guilty about blaming it on the "vehicle in front". I tried to ride with some oomph and unfortunately there was a bad patch of sand and since oomph and sand, never ever go well, i skidded and fell. This happened right outside college and I'm really really lucky that the RV bus didn't run me over. That fall busted my knee, which saw me go to the lecherous Knee doctor for diagnosis ( Ofcourse i didn't know he was lecherous when i first went to him. Just clarifying). He said it was a knee sprain and suggested physiotherapy exercise and hot water packs. It seemed to heal and i began to walk and everything seemed fine, but whenever i attempted serious sport, it buckled. I was unable to run etc and things came to a head at Vaishno Devi, where even my parents could descend better than me. My knee completely gave away. After i came back, i went to an orthopaedic surgeon who suggested i take an MRI. when he saw the scan results, he said it was a ligament tear and the only way out of it was Surgery.

it's probably one of the scariest words in the language. you go numb on hearing that. You don't want to do it, but you have to do it. so my surgery got scheduled on the 2nd. i don't know why, but before surgery you apparently needed to starve, so what if they say " you can't eat anything"?, deprivation is deprivation. my surgery was scheduled at 4 pm, so i starved. then one of the docs came into the room and asked me to sign a bunch of papers basically stating that if something should go wrong, I'll not hold the hospital responsible. very sweet. and then the doc asked me " what kind of anaesthesia do you want?". what can i say, I'm a surgery virgin, i had no clue as to what he was talking about. so i said "I dunno". " Do you want the safer one?", he asked, trying to help me make my decision. I wish i had the wonderful ability to raise my eyebrow, which would signify, major alarm, disgust and mortification all at the same time. but I don't. so i said, " the safest" in what i thought was a stern voice. " No, no, no" he protested, " All the methods are safe only", and then he sat down and proceeded to explain the various types of anaesthesia on offer.

type one: spinal anaesthesia, where an anaesthetic injection is given to the spine and the body below the waist becomes numb. type two: nasal anaesthetia, where tubes are inserted into the nose, where an anaesthetic gas is sent in and the entire body is anaesthetized. Type 3 : natural anaesthetia, where the patient awaiting surgery faints upon hearing of spinal taps and nasal tubes.

when i got finally wheeled in to the OT, the anaestheologist asked me if i was nervous. i said i was ravenous, which he somehow heard as "nervous", said that i should not worry as all the doctors were "Top doctors". but how does one know? with their masks, it could be anybody. and then to distract me from the spinal tap, he asked me my name. they didn't even know my name!!!. and since i have a quick thinking brain, i also assumed they hadn't read my case file, did they even know it was my knee they had to operate on? did they ? did they?, so without any context i blurted " It's my right knee doctor, the right knee". if they were startled, i couldn't see with those masks and i couldn't care less. i didn't want these jimmies to open my heart out.

Anaesthesia is a very trippy experience,theres a electrical discharge which feels wonderfully weird and then the whole area goes numb and heavy. i couldn't feel my legs at all. then the obviously loquasious ana..gist asked my bio data, which college?, what degree ? yada yada and then proceeded to give me some sound career advice. thats was it really, i didn't want to be awake while this man bugged me and told me i was wasting my degree, i asked to be sedated.oh, i also mentioned i was mangalorean, which went down very well with three of the doctors, they told me that i really needn't worry now since i was mangy and all, they promised to take extra care. before i passed out, i muttered "right knee" one last time and my last thought before succumbing to sleep was the plight of poor non mangy folks.

sometime during the fag end of the surgery, i woke up and though i was still feeling very groggy and drugged, i could hear the docs talking. they are such blabbermouths. the air was thick with gossip. they were talking about this doc kiran who was apparently parting ways with this hospital, Sagar, or was it the other way around?. well anyway, they were speculating as to whether kiran/sagar was actually fired from kiran/sagar and if this guy was stuffing everybody about quitting. then i heard a drill , some more about the plight of kiran/sagar and then drill again. i wanted to shush them. i wanted to shout, " shutup! you pikeys!! thats my knee you are messing with!!". thankfully, the surgery ended soon after that, and one of the docs made a joke in tulu, which was really funny, so i came out of the OT laughing. probably the only person to do so.
which is a great sign, alive, kicking and happy.