Injury Fun Time

I may have asked for it with all the jokes about injuries in that last post. Last week at Ju Jitsu (not my own club but the one I train at) we had a crowded mat with lots of newbies and returned prodigals (as is often the way at the start of the year). Sensei demonstrated a throw - essentially a leg sweep as a defence to a kick - where both uke and tori have their backs to the spot that uke is thrown to.

Sensei gave all the usual warnings - look before you throw, throw out from the centre of the mat etc. and I threw my training partner with no problem. Then it was his turn. I hit the mat safely enough, but the next thing I knew somebody else hit me. Hard. He'd been thrown at the same time, in the same direction as me and the back of his head hit the side of my face. I remember bellowing in a manner more bovine than manly and trying to get off the mat as quickly as possible. However Sensei flung his arms around me and guided me to safety himself. He'd seen how dazed I was and didn't want me wandering into something or someone.

All I remember saying at that point was 'it's bad'. Sometimes it hurts like hell but you know you'll be alright with a few minutes/ hours/ days of rest. But I couldn't feel my teeth. Not all of them anyway, and I couldn't open my mouth or my eye properly. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Then Sensei said the encouraging words 'That side of your face is drooping.' Shit.

After the obligatory 5-hour wait in A&E I found myself talking to the terrifyingly young and rather beautiful Dr. Chu. I explained what had happened, that the pain was all over the lower right side of my face and that I couldn't feel my teeth. I also mentioned a bump I'd felt in my eye socket, prodding around to relieve the boredom in the waiting room.

Anna, as I'm sure she won't mind me calling her, tested for concussion, vision problems and paralysis (the latter was a new one on me that involved her grabbing my arm and asking me to pull her towards me). 'I doubt anything will be fractured,' Annie assured me, 'but we'll take a couple of x-rays to be on the safe side.' Now where have I heard that before? Oh yes, two cubicles up when one of your colleagues doubted I'd broken my toe. Wrongly.

After the x-rays it was an hour before I saw the Annester again. Had she forgotten about me? Was she experiencing a crisis of conscience, torn between professional duty and burgeoning passion? No.

'Normally if the eye socket fractures it goes in two places at once...' Right. You've got my interest now, Doctor Chu. '... so I called a specialist to make sure that what I was seeing on the x-ray was a fracture as it's only gone in one place. They want to see you next week as a precaution - they hardly ever need to operate with a fracture like this. They'll most likely let it heal itself.'

I should know by now. Whether it's my luck or a case of Doctors not wanting to frighten you (Christ knows what sort of reactions they get on the night shift in A&E), the things that hardly ever happen seem to happen to me quite often. So I guess I was lucky that it was only a single fracture.

The not-beautiful maxillo-facial specialist advised that the bone had dropped and it might be an idea to lift it and fix it with a titanium plate, for the sake of my stunning good looks. He then double-checked this with a not-beautiful senior colleague who prodded me around a bit (they were both a lot less gentle than the lovely Anna) and advised that it wasn't a mere cosmetic consideration. 'The bone's trapped a nerve - we need to lift it clear so that it doesn't trap the nerve permanently as it heals.'

That explained the loss of feeling. It also got me some brownie points at work, where the relatively light bruising had been a cause of disappointment amongst my colleagues. So now I'm waiting for a call from the hospital telling me when to come in for my op. It should take place on Monday but I may need to be there on Sunday night.

Why is it that martial artists, more than skiiers or footballers, get asked why they keep their hobby up when something like this happens? This last week I've had people who've broken their arms skiing say 'Why do you keep doing this?' Er, because a) I love it, b) serious injuries really are rare and c) we all know how dangerous it is and so most people, most of the time, are very careful. Mountains, on the whole, don't give a toss what happens to skiers.

So I've been going to most of my classes, teaching verbally from off the mat*. Which is actually a lot of fun, and an interesting challenge. I expect I'll be out of action for a month or two, then I'll ease myself back in gently. The reaction from my JJ and Escrima buddies has been everything you'd hope - concerned, thoughtful and cheering. And I'm looking forward to any special powers that come with my titanium plate, even if it is only the ability to pick up the Paul Jones Show on Radio 2.

*Any Green Belts who claim that I snuck on the mat quickly to show them an arm-lock are lying.