A little mishap
Saturday evening, and a knock on the door dragged me away from my computer. There stood Maxim, an embarrassed grin, (or was that grimace), beamed from his face as he informed me: “I think I have broken my toe.”
He hopped into the office and sat down on the first available chair. He couldn’t bear any weight on his left foot and was definitely in some pain. “What happened?”, I asked … thinking that I could guess. Sure enough, he had been on his beloved BMX, doing stunts with his friends in one of the squares in downtown Bishkek, when a girl ran in front his bike; he swerved to avoid her, lost his balance and fell, landing awkwardly. At least, I suppose, he deserves praise for doing the valiant thing and trying to avoid an innocent bystander … even if she did happen to wander into his path … mind you, she probably had more right to be where she was than a seventeen year old youth on a bike doing jumps and racing along at breakneck speeds.
Anyway, he removed his trainers and his socks, and the big toe was considerably swollen, and no matter how much he tried to wiggle his toes, there was no movement. I had a similar injury when I was a teenager, (but mine came in a game of Rugby), so I knew how painful it must have felt. The question remained … what to do next?
There seemed to be no choice … a quick phone call to Mum, to find out where was best place to take him, (home or to a hospital to have his foot checked), hail a taxi and set off. As it happens, Mum said “Let’s have a look at it first,” so we set off to his home on the outskirts of town. I thought I would then be free to return home, but somehow I got persuaded to accompany Maxim and Genia, his older brother, to the hospital.
In a way, I am glad that I went. It was an interesting experience, not unlike attending the A&E, (Accident and Emergency), department at the local hospital after an accident or getting hurt in a rugby game. There were some differences, however. Back home, there would have been a mass of people hanging around, especially on a Saturday evening. Here, there were just three patients in the clinic when we arrive, counting us. It’s true that a lot more people arrived in the hour and a half while we were there, and there would be a lot as the evening wore on, (it was a Saturday night, after all), but it still seemed very quiet and peaceful. We were well and truly outnumbered by the medical staff, doctors, nurses and orderlies. There were also lots of other people hanging around, but they looked like visitors who had come to see someone on one of the wards.
After registration, where they looked rather grave at Maxim’s the enlarged big toe and marked with an “X”, it was off to the X-Ray department. This seemed to be a lot busier than anywhere else with people walking up all through our wait for the negative to be developed. Then, back to the reception where they gave us the good news: the toe wasn’t broken. There was, however, a fracture and it needed to be put in plaster, which he would have to wear for ten days. “It’s a good job you came today,” they said, “because if you had left it until tomorrow, we would have told you to leave the cast on for twenty days, and not just ten.”
There was a queue for the attention of the nurse that dressed the leg, so Genia and I went outside for a short walk. When we came back, Genia burst into hysterics … for a toe that wasn’t even broken, Maxim was sporting a leg with plaster all up the shin.
When we set out, I had warned Maxim that we would probably spend a lot of time sitting around, waiting, and would probably be something like three hours. As I said, however, even though we spent most of the time sitting, waiting, we were there for just over an hour and a half.
He was told not walk, which would mean putting weight on the plaster, so he hopped to the taxi for the short ride home … and the knowledge that he has ten days of sitting at home without his beloved BMX.
Fortunately, however, he is not exactly housebound. As it happens, Dyed Genia, (one of my neighbours), took pity on him when he saw Maxim hopping and said, “Wait here,” as he disappeared into his flat. Not sure what to expect, we waited as instructed and were amazed when he emerged a few minutes later with … a pair of crutches. Dyed Genia is one those people who, stores things away … “just in case” they might be useful one day … well, this time it seems his squirrel like attribute proved to be very apt.
Here’s a short clip which Maxim prepared in order to upload to his own blog, featuring himself and some of friends at a number of events … :
Bishkek