It was the last day of class before semester end .....i had just got back to teaching after a gap of 8 years ....i was teaching in two colleges at two levels ...in the government aided college of a group of colleges ..i was taking 14 undergraduate lectures and one two hour class for post graduates .....and i was taking one lecture of 1.5 hours for another pvt professional college with the same group of colleges ... that day was a day of a puja ....the goddess saraswati was being prayed to that day in college ......ergo i was in a saree ....
since we had to collect my elder child's report card that day, my husband and i went to school first .....unfortunately there was a talk about nutrition going on there ...i requested the teacher to give me the report card and we left immediately ...my husband was supposed to drop me till a point from where i could take a rickshaw to college ....
near German Bakery a three wheeler (rickshaw) took a left turn without indication and the motorbike we were on slightly touched the rickshaw.... and we crashed as my husband lost his balance ....
the last thing i remembered was hitting my forehead against the road ....when i came to in one minute's time ...i remember, not being able to get up and i was wondering .....ohh still alive ...... phew!!!!
but i could not get up ....and i realised i had broken my right hand ....since i was wearing a saree i was not sitting astride as i usually do and was sitting sideways on the bike ... and with the impact i fell on my hand .... and my husband got a few scrapes on his hand ...
The humerus, ulna and radius on my right hand were totally gone ...luckily the humerus was a clean break, the ulna and radius were crushed above the wrist and one of them was sticking out of my hand .... when i managed to stand up with help ....i realised how bad it was ...my hand hung upto my knee Plus it rotated 360 degrees and in the middle of the most devastating day of my life ....i felt like laughing at the weirdness of it all ...i picked up my hand and went and sat down on the curb and kept my right hand in my lap .... people by this time had tried to stop the richshaw driver with no success, and one lady on her way to work came and helped me ..... i remember asking her, her name ..... but later i forgot her name and where she worked and felt so bad that i never really thanked her ... the bike was getting taken care of by my husband and i was so angry ...that a thing is more important than me ...i asked him to call a doctor we knew and arrange for an ambulance, as i did not want to harm my hand anymore .....
i was sitting there when i realised something was drenching my saree and thought ohh dear ... my water bottle must have got spoilt ... and leaking ..when i looked i realised the bones were sticking out from a cut in my hand ...when one is groggy from a fall ...comprehension is foggy ... the wound in my hand was bleeding steadily and that was what i thought was water....i tried to cover the wound with my saree....just before the ambulance arrived the pain hit me and it was worse than Child Birth !!!!!!!!! boy the pain was excruciating to say the least and my hair had come undone and was all over my face and everywhere ...i had waist lenght hair then ...finally on reaching the hospital they cut up my clothes and cut my jewellery ...i was insisting they cut my rings too ..however a young doctor there was ...it is ok we can try and remove these rings if you co-operate ... it pained so much i was yelling at the doctor, in no time, to get the stuff cut open .... by this time my sister and brother in law who stay opposite the hospital had reached .....when she asked the doctor if i was ok .... he said ''at the rate she is yelling at us, i doubt anything happened to her head due to the accident'' however we will be doing an MRI to rule out any problem .....finally by this time the orthopedic arrived and he came and made me sit up ....examined my hand ...i was whimpering in pain ...this guy takes a second to set my hand in place .....and i think i will never forget the immense relief i got in that one second ...
i was given a simple cast and sent for an MRI ...then quite a few xrays were taken and i got admitted ...my phone was continuously ringing for some time as i knew students must have been waiting for me .....these were students from a pvt college and i was teaching an interdisciplinary elective for them ...banking and insurance .... they were scared of anything to do with economics as their cor subject was computers.... when i got a room in the hospital i called up the class representative and asked her to come meet me with someone else .....she reached in an hour's time with one more student and i took a quick class on the few remaining topics left .... revised what all we had covered so far and told the child to go help her class mates .... she left with a promise to do so ..... then i dictated the question paper to my husband who went and emailed it to the exam head in the said college ... the kids had two days for the exam ...and my operation was slotted for the next morning .....every time i moved i could feel the bones shifting and the shooting pain till my hand came back to normal position ... the next morning i went in for a four hour surgery and came out with 3 rods and quite a few nuts and bolts to keep them in place .......
i came to know what pain is all about .....
what a peak in pain threshold is all about ..... and how little i use my left hand ....luckily for me i too was born left handed like my younger brother after me ..... a thing my mom changed in me and my brother ..... initially i would hurt myself while brushing my teeth with my left hand .....however i got so good at it that .... even after 3 operations i am more left handed ....and can not wash my face with my right hand ....i am mostly left handed ....
the pain at that point was killing ....i just did not want to be awake ....and all i could think of is how unfair it all is ...since i had got back to teaching after so long ....and was really liking it at that point of time .....
that is life ....it shows you ....How your life DOES NOT flash in front of your eyes when you are about to die ......the last thing i remembered was ...ohh we are going to have an accident and i hit my head and fainted ..... for a minute !!! LOL ;)
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