More Bad Luck

The bad luck continues. I broke my nose during the first quarter of Monday’s game after attempting to double team their big guy. This did not have the intended effect, because instead of passing the ball out he decided to move my face out of the way with his elbow. It did not feel good. I knew instantly my nose was broken, so I was just hoping I didn’t have a concussion. I felt pretty dazed for a while but I never felt nauseated and I never lost consciousness so I figured I was OK on the head injury front.

I contemplated going back in the game for the second half, but I got talked out of it by people who were thinking more clearly than I was. That ended up being the right decision because we won by 20. A total of 0 players from the other team asked if I was alright. Real classy Hod Hasheron. Hopefully we can beat them tonight at their place and advance to the semi-finals. I have to wear a mask. I’m hoping I pull a Richard Hamilton and love it so much that I wear it for years.

After the game Gabbi and I were off for another late night trip to the hospital. I had to see a doctor, get an x ray, see another doctor, go to another hospital, wait a half hour, see a nurse and finally see the doctor who would fix my nose.

I was a little nervous to have my nose reset at 1 in the morning. I had no idea how long this woman’s shift was, how tired she was or how much she cared about making this experience as pleasant as possible. Thankfully she spoke good English, and she seemed like she knew what she was doing. I asked her how much this was all going to hurt, on a scale from 1-10, and she said a 5. That made me feel a little better until I thought about how snapping your femur was probably a 10, and that is like pass out level pain. A 5 started to seem kind of high.

In order to begin to numb the area they have to shove a bunch of gauze up your nose that has been coated with god knows what. My right nostril was pretty much jammed shut with blood and mucus, and as she approached me with the gauze I started thinking “she is going to let me clean that out first, right? She isn’t going to just jam that in there, is she? Where would all that material even go? Oh god no!” I started to protest but she did not care, and proceeded to shove a whole bunch of gauze into an already clogged nose. The results were predictably horrifying. It felt like my brain was getting attacked with a jack hammer.

Once the gauze had been in place for 15 minutes, it was time for the real work. The gauze was removed, they injected my nose something, and a nurse appeared out of nowhere and squirted something into my mouth. The doctor assured me it was a painkiller. I am used to a system where they tell a person who is lying down with his eyes close what it is he is taking before they shoot a foreign liquid into his mouth, but that’s now how they roll out here.

It was finally time to snap everything back into place. She used a piece of metal to brace the left side, and basically just re-broke my nose with the other hand. It was a pretty gnarly experience. The painkillers were not of much use. I told Gabbi to film it. He didn’t do the best job but if you listen really hard you can hear the crack. It sounded like a gun shot from my perspective.