humpty dumpty had a great fall

The day I fell and my world turned upside down, but first, let me take a selfie. (I know that's like 2014 but it still applies here I guess.) 

*** You have been warned.

Hello everyone, it has been more than a week since I had a great fall and I guess the puzzle of me not having interesting content online lately has been solved. Yeah, I fell down and broke my ankle. I've been repeating this story quite a few times to those who visited me at the hospital (Thanks guys!) so this is going out to those who didn't manage to visit me. P.S. don't feel bad if you didn't because I really understand if you didn't have time and to make you feel better, if it was you I probably wouldn't make time out to visit you either.

Every character has their own path, and suffering makes every character more real. Every character needs a backstory and an anchor point. So let's start from the top how this story really started. (If you found this paragraph a bit weird, that's because you didn't catch Westworld, which I did over the last few days. Yes, the doctor mentioned that I shouldn't be working in front of the com too long (Which I clearly didn't care) thus I've been watching a fair bit of TV. )

I mean it can be kinda boring a story to read on cause it's really not hard to guess what happened since I started the story with the picture of a longboard. Yeah, TL;DR, I fall off the longboard and broke my ankle but the beauty of a story ain't just about the ending but the process right? Erm... right?

So yeah. I've been lusting for a skateboard/longboard for the longest time but I never really got onto it. I mean since X'mas was round the corner so i decided to just get one for myself. Like, why not right? I mean I cycle, I inline skate, I play basketball, I do this whole yoga thing, this shouldn't be THAT difficult right.

I do not have any young friends to teach me or whatever so I would turned myself to the greatest knowledge bank for help - YouTube. I watched a few videos and I was like "yay! I'm ready."

In my defence (of my image after this fall), I really did manage to pick it up. I was actually moving around and even managed to do certain turns and stuff before I fell.

So how did it happened? I did a kick, the board went forward and I misssed a step with my kicking foot (right foot), I got tossed into mid air and landed on my butt with my leg right under it.

My life work flashed passed my mind. I was like oh shit no no no no no..

After the fall 

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH"

I screamed. I screamed like someone who broke his leg. LOL. I turned myself to one side and I saw my foot in an awkward position. Like it's just in this crazy angle.

I took out my phone, got my neighbour to call the ambulance where he had a very frustrated convo with the telephone operator. He was trying his best to tell him that I injured my leg without sounding too scared at the same time. The person on the other side of the line was asking him "what type of fracture is it?" and he was like "HOW WOULD I KNOW? It looks bad lah! Like he cannot move and it's out of position lah."

It's quite funny sometimes how these professional healthcare workers are so professional and indifferent about such accidents (in order to work calmly. Not complaining. I do like a calm operator as compared to one who will go "WHATTT? OMG OMG OMG") but the victims or involved would feel a lot better if they gotten some sympathy at the same time.

After the very agonising phone call, he asked me if he should call my wife to inform her and my immediate response was "NO! Don't make her worry. she is with my son." I then changed my mind almost immediately because I realised that I would probably need my IC to get admitted in the hospital. LOL.

The pain was more manageable at this point in time and I decided to take over the phone. I quickly called my insurance agent. I'm not the most savvy person when it comes to details like these. I mean, I know I pay a good sum of money per month but I've no clue how am I being covered. I gave her a call and I was telling her how I broke my leg and asked what I need to do. She told me to send snapshots of my IC to her and she'll handle the rest.

I then passed my phone to my neighbour and requested him to help me take a few pictures for documenting purposes and he went "Are you going to blog about this?" And I went "DUH?"

I started sending some guys telling them Sunday's shoot is out as well as to my campmates. I was like telling them DOWNGRADE LO! I was trying to control my pain as well as breathing with all these happening but I needed something to distract me. Boy am I glad my phone was charged. Can't imagine if all these happened with a flat phone. (Yeah, now the battery level of my phone sounds way more important than my foot I know.)

The ambulance soon came and after they greeted me and got the necessary information out of the way, I went "Please do not cut my shoes. I love them very much. They are nikes and they are pinkkkkk"

They were so kind and they slowly took my shoes off and even show me in front of my face and went "Mr.Leong, see, your shoes, very okay. your ankle.. not so." LOL

By now, all the kids and kaypo neighbours were looking out of their windows since there was an ambulance, kids from the park stopped playing and gathered around to see what happened. Did someone die? Is it a crime scene? I'm sure it's killing them not to know the truth.

"HELLO EVERYONE!! I AM OKAY! I JUST FALL OFF THE LONGBOARD!! IM OKAY!! JUST BROKEN MY ANKLE THAT'S ALL!" 

Yup. I sat up from the stretcher, put my arms in the air and scream as if I was Trump running for presidency. I know, flashy, and annoying according to the wife. Trust me, she was in no mood to joke but I disagree because you know, laughter is the best medicine and I thought I could laugh my way out.

On the ambulance 

Me, "Dude, what's the car plate?"

Medic, "Why?"

Me, "You know they say break a leg, which means good luck?"

Medic, "Oh! hahaha. It's XXXX. You want the case file number also?"

Me, "It's okay. There's only 1 first prize every night." (No surprise, didn't strike. All those confidence ain't doing me well)

Other small talk

Me, "Hey.. You look really young. Are you like some intern?"

Young looking Medic, "Oh ya. I'm an intern fron NUS. I'm 22 yrs old"

Me, "Oh, becoming a doctor? how long is your Internship?"

YLM, "Oh ya, just a day."

Me, "Wah! only a day? you are soooo lucky."

YLM, "Why?"

Me, "Because you met me?"

Everyone laughed

Me, "no no no.. Let me explain. It's her only day right? If not for my fall, she would be like sitting in the office doing nothing and she would have wasted her 1 day of internship. That's what I meant."

YLM, "Orhhh.. That's why you broke your ankle right? So I could learn. You are such a kind person."

Neighbour (Sitting upfront), "Dude, you broke your ankle and you are still hitting on girls? Really?"

Me, "Well, you don't need your ankle to get a girl's number right?"

P.S. no, I didn't get her number, not even her name. I was just kidding. (And also because she saw my wife when she "picked me up" from the floor literally.

At Changi Hospital (Before being transferred out to the private hospital by my insurance agent and team) 

Doctors, "Can you tell me what happened?"

Me, "Shit happened lor."

Doctors, "haha. a bit more details?"

Me, "broke my ankle from skateboard."

Doctors, "Okay, I know you are not admitting into CGH but we need to do some immediate action to help you. You got a fractured ankle and we are going to pull your leg back into position."

Me, "Pull my leg? You're kidding right?"

- Awkward silence -

Me, "comon, I broke my ankle not my sense of humour, I'm sure you guys can laugh?"

Doctors, "Anyway we gonna sedate you and you will feel a bit high and see some stuff and colors etc."

Me, "Coooool"

And yup, I got sedated and that was like the best 60secs of my life. I could feel that they were pulling my leg and all but I didn't feel pain. I remember images running around, lights, I was like dancing at Zoukout (which coincidentally happened the same weekend as my fall lol), I was laughing and screaming in joy and saying loads of shit and before I realised I was actually up.

With my vision still blur, I saw this shadow of another young looking female doctor

Me, "omg.. that was soooo good. I was like sooo high.. Have you tried this before?"

Her, "erm no.."

Me, "You should you know. So good. Any chance you know if they sell it?"

Her, "I'm quite sure that's a no. You'll probably abuse it."

Me, "I promise I'll use it in moderation? please?"

- another awkward silence- I'm starting to think that doctors have no sense of humour.

Me, "You look really young. Are you an intern like the other girl?"

Her, "Oh ya, we are batch mates. She told me about you."

Me, "Oops. I hope nothing bad?"

She smiled. Okay. What does that even mean? WHAT?????

Anyway after that, my insurance team actually managed to pull me out very quickly and I was on my way to Farrer Park Hospital.

The place was so pretty and glam it's almost like a hotel. I was there say early evening around 6ish and my team already gotten the doctor ready to do an op for me but because my last meal was at 3pm, they were worried that my food might get in the way of the op and I had to wait till 10pm. The doctor at AnE was asking me some questions and we took xray. He's a dude with a great sense of humour as well. We were talking and he was asking me what was I thinking when I decided to pick up longboarding at 32? That thing is a longboard, he says, NOT a time machine. LOL. Ok, doctors do have sense of humour.

And my xray.

My doctor was sharing with me that he is gonna add some screws for me to hold it there and I went,

"Oh... So I guess this is the origin of the saying "I'm screwed."

Ya. Well, my doctor didn't laugh. He probably heard it a thousand times since medical school days.

I must really give my insurance agent a big shout out here. Her turn around time was so damn quick to get everything ready even on a weekend and I know she was out with her friends. Amazing seriously.

My breakfast on the morning after.

So here's a picture of my ankle after operation and also my wound.

I asked my doctor to pass me the xray so i could take picture and doctor was like "you need the Xray box light to see your xray. Or else you cannot take the picture."

I went "bitch please. I know how to take a picture as much as you know how to operate on my foot lah."

Okay, I didn't say it out loud and I also hope he doesn't read blogs. LOL.

And below is a picture of my wound/scar.

Conclusion: 

I'm going to be on crutches for 2months because the long screw that in my ankle is really thin and it will snap if I put my body weight on it and after that I will need to go through physiotherapy to make sure I remember how to walk.

Not only did I broke my bone but I also tore all my ligament around my ankle which is the actual problem here. According to my doctor, the bone heals easily as compared to the ligament. So good luck to me. So what happened was, I actually twisted my ligament like how you will twist dry a t-shirt after washing. That's how heavy my butt was seriously. "I will sit on you" do sound a lot more threatening coming from me now.

I'm not sure how long it will take me to come back to start basketball or yoga again but I'm not saying it's over for my non-existent sports career. I'm still working on my upper body. I'm still doing one leg pushups, working on my dumbbells and all. And you know what? It must be a sign. I was at the cinemas the other day watching Rogue One and they show me the trailer of "Bleed for this"



OMG! SO SO SO inspiring!! What's your excuse people? What's your excuse!

P.S. Oh, my longboard is still with my neighbour. If anyone of you are interested I can sell you at a cheaper price and also throw in my insurance agent's number. :D