Friday, February 27, 2009

twisted and bruised

I twisted my ankle yesterday just before I left for work in the morning.

Kinda silly actually. Wen was acting up (4th time this week) and fussing so by the time she got ready for breakfast, I was almost late again for my transport. In my rush, I stepped on my slippers while trying to open the shoe cabinet to grab my heels. And that's when it happened.

I hobbled out of the house and caught the bus in the nick of time and didn't think very much about my left ankle because I thought the pain would subside after a while. So I went about my usual activities at work and continued to walk around, ignoring the niggling pain.

It was only after lunch when a few of my colleagues noticed me moving awkwardly. That's when I looked down and realised that my left ankle was slightly bruised and swollen. I called the hub and he suggested I visit his regular "Tui Na" 推拿 expert Henry whose office is at Chinatown.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeks. I hate this form of Chinese Massage where they knead, push, stretch the muscles. The hub knows my threshold for pain during these "Tui Na" sessions is pathetic although he can't understand it especially since I survived 3 natural childbirths without the use of epidural.

Anyway, I decided to go ahead and left office at 4pm (at the advice of my colleagues and supervisors) before the ankle got worse. The hub accompanied me for the "Tui Na" to lend me some moral support - although I think he was more interested to see my reaction during the session.

All I can say is that I let my dignity fly out of the window 5 minutes into the massage. I grimaced in pain as Henry kneaded, pushed, stretched and massaged my left ankle. Halfway through my tears were flowing freely and I was whimpering like a baby. He's obviously very seasoned and even rightfully commented that I had a previous injury years ago which I hadn't bothered about.

Before I left, Henry smiled and said that it would take about 2 days for my ankle to heal as it really wasn't very serious as I hadn't broken any bones. "No need to come back unless it still hurts after a few days." I made a mental note that I wasn't coming back.

This morning when I woke up, my ankle was red and still slightly bruised, with a light swell but I went back to work:

I could move about albeit a little slowly. By the end of the day, I wasn't limping about as much, and walking up and down the stairs wasn't too difficult. I'm quite confident the ankle will heal soon and more importantly, I won't have to visit Henry again.

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