So… I had an accident. Something I deemed impossible even with the bad motor bike riders we sometimes use as transport on the busy Nigerian streets. Accidents are somehow rarer in my part of the world, I thought, compared to the developed world. The strange thing about my accident and knee injury though, were the little premonitions here and there before it happened.
I had an thought a month back that what if something happens to my knee and I was unable to bend it for a while to do a task I was doing at the moment. Very weird thought to think right? I had no problem with my knees so why would I think that? I brushed it aside. Before I entered the bike,I had a feeling the guy would make a mistake. He did.
Another weird tidbit was a moment where I imagined I had broken an arm and was wearing a cast, due to frustration with my current situation in life and just wanting a break. Even if breaking something would give me a break. I sighed and brushed it off, I didn’t think much of it, after all, I don’t REALLY want that to happen nor is there a chance of that happening.
I broke something alright, and it was in my knee. An open cut, A tore Patella Tendon, slight tear of some other musculature around, A bit of shattered bone from the patella. Even before MRI and Xray told this stuff, I knew that something was going to need repair. And turned out I needed surgery. I got surgery. It wasn’t a small money for us, but thankfully we could afford it. Not before the nagging and insults from my mother though. But I felt her pain too. Before that is the long story of the accident scene to a small hospital who gave me my first stitch, where I could feel the needle. Sweet.
The young bike rider of Northern Nigerian descent was said by his family to have broken collar bone and somethings, maybe his left arm. If the guy never approached me, it would have been a different night probably. Or if I had blown him off on the spot and took my time choosing another bike of my choice. But my damn niceness.
We made eye contact and he was already speaking to me, so why not put my bodily safety in the hands of this guy, right. Some nurses at the peanut sized maternity hospital/ clinic stylishly blamed me for entering the bike of an ‘Aboki’ (nickname for northerner), because its something she will never do. Meanwhile in real life everybody enters aboki bikes along with bikes from other ethnicities.
It was just my day to smash my knee. But it’s easier said and done to give advice and say what you would or wouldn’t do when it’s not your knee smashing day. Nigerians will say “God forbid” something happens to them, until it happens to them or someone they know. It’s never let’s amend the laws of transport or get these bike systems removed, its Sorry and God forbid.
I never saw the biker again, so I don’t know how true it was that he got injured. One of his people say he was shipped to the North for treatment. He stood up before me at the accident scene though, looking confused. He was held by the small crowd that formed at the scene of the accident. We were begged not to report it to the police in the clinic. My mother, brother and I, when they arrived, I mean.
We didn’t report. Their bike was sized and put at the back of the clinic. After the bike man’s people forked out a little naira and brought some whack traditional healer who gave me a rubbing leg session once, we payed the rest of the bulk money, not to mention the surgery that was upcoming. My mother gave them the bike days later when we were leaving the clinic. After that initial clinic, we never heard from them again.
Surgery: Surgery was something. It was done at the orthopedic private hospital I got the brace and crutches from. Also the second much painless stitchs (compared to the first dreadful one) after I bent my knee too much and fell backwards and opened the first stitch from the clinic, yikes. I found it online. I was already getting used to walking with a torn patella and the other torn up stuff before surgery. MRI and Xray said stuff was torn though and needed fixing.
Duh, I could see the inside of my knee on the spot of the accident, a story for another day… Adjusting to using crutches and a brace was slow and painstaking, but the pain was reducing. I couldn’t raise my leg or bend the knee but I was adjusting to using my brace and crutches I got from the orthopedic hospital. Surgery was a new level of pain. I was admitted.
The next day was surgery. Anaesthesia was numbing of the legs and covering my view from what the surgeon and his team were doing. After surgery my legs were still numb and I didn’t move. I was transported from the operating table to my bed. When the numbing wore off, pain hit. And oh boy, it was next level pain.
I would say it was worse than the pain I felt from the actual accident. Which didn’t surprise me, I could hear some hacking with a mallet and drilling. Some iron was put in my knee that will still have to be removed three months later. I was put on non weight-bearing, so I am expected to hop about . Anyways I was uncomfortable for days, back to square one. It reminded me of the day after the accident where I was nuts with pain at some point at the xray place. I just couldn’t make my leg comfortably. It was also always placed up on something too. A chair, A pillow…
theyenzyradical 