The Sprained Ankle

54. Discuss how some negative experience (disability, illness, failure) has had a positive influence on your life.

Just last week, I hurt myself playing basketball down at Hostel, the dormitory where I live. I was playing against a couple of friends of mine, and tried to take the shot, and landed on my ankle. Though I hurt myself while playing, I had made the shot. It was an amazing moment. I felt relieved and felt back on the game. I hurt myself so badly that I thought it was a broken ankle. I went to the Health Center the next day, to be taken to the local hospital in Mussoorie, Landor Community Hospital, to have a cast put on. I was told that it was a third degree sprain, and that there was no need to worry because nothing was broken. My ankle felt fine, and I was walking on the injured leg. But after keeping that on for a day, my toes were starting to bruise up. I went to the hospital to get the cast taken off and my leg checked. I ended up feeling disgusted by what I saw. My leg, right above my ankle, had started to bleed from the inside. I didn’t know what was happening, and the doctor just explained that the cast was on too tight. No duh! It was his fault that my leg was like this and he was trying to console me by stating his mistake in the diagnosis? I didn’t even understand why he put a cast on an ankle which was swollen up. Nothing was broken clearly, so I didn’t see the point. But him being a doctor, and me being a 17 year-old, I had to hand over the certificate of knowledge to him.

Even sitting here like this now, I can imagine the days that went by after I got the cast on. I didn’t understand how to go about my daily routines. I didn’t know how I was supposed to shower, I didn’t know how to use the crutches with hurting my underarms or my legs, and I didn’t know how to feel happy about the fact that I had hurt my leg; the one thing I thought was the strongest part of my body. This year has been a really bad year of health for me. I sprained my ankle really badly; two discs in my spine slipped out from over exercising at home, I got sick for a week or so, and had a cold for what seemed like all of monsoon. I am usually someone who doesn’t get sick very often. I take pride in my health. I feel like one of the few people I know who doesn’t get sick on a regular basis. For his reason, I seem to take advantage of everything, especially my body. That’s a first: someone taking advantage of their own body, rather than someone taking advantage of it. Anyways, back to the topic. I would wear a thin quarter sleeved shirt to school in the month of November. I would open the windows and sleep at night; I usually feel very claustrophobic at night. I take shower with cold water after playing sports, even in the winter. I over exert my body and try out different exercises at home to make up for all the times I didn’t work out at school. I try to do all kinds of different things which test the limit of my body. It really shocks me to know that this is the first time that I have every injured my body in a physical way. Until now, I have only gotten sick. I have never broken a bone, I have never cracked my skull open, I have never tore a muscle; I have felt like Mr. Invincible. But this year has shown me that I’m human and that I need to take care of myself.

I’m usually someone who goes out of his way to prove to himself that he is capable of doing anything and everything under the sun. Though I may not be adrenaline junkies or the extreme sports kind of guy, I definitely am someone who tries to push his limit. This year, I have been able to prove to myself, not intentionally, that I am a human being. I am capable of getting hurt and I am capable of feeling hopeless. This experience has definitely taught me a lot. I was so interested in looking like the best person I can be, by exercising so much that I hurt my back. I would run 12 km in the morning, and 12 kilometers in the evening. Many people don’t see me exercise in school, and that’s because I don’t. I do everything I need to at home. I don’t eat much at home, and drink a lot of green tea. Many of you may sit here reading this, thinking that wow, this guy is so self-absorbed. The only thing he cares about is how good he looks in those pair of jeans and how slim he is. And yes, that did matter to me … a lot. I was obsessed about looking good. But after hurting my back, and my ankle playing an innocent game of basketball, I have come to realize that there is no point in doing all of that, if in the end, it could potentially make me paralyzed. I no longer think that my legs and my back are as strong as I used to think they were, I have tried to be careful with everything I have done after getting the cast off. Though I don’t really listen to the nurses and wear a crepe bandage around my ankle, I have definitely learned to be very careful with the things I play and the way I play it. I would never think about becoming paralyzed because I was doing something as stupid as running 24 km a day. I’ve come to realize that that was completely insane. Never again will I ever push myself to that extent.

Yes, all of us believe that we are invincible at some point or other in our lives, but this “negative experience” or “disability” has shown me that I am important to myself. This experience has shown me that I need to be careful with myself and that there is going to be no one who is going to tell me how I just act and what I should and should not do. I am old enough to realize all of this myself. Yes, there are going to be times when the little child in me comes out, and I want to do the craziest things under the sun, but this sprained ankle has shown me that I need to be careful if I want to live a long life. It has taught me that I am not invincible and that I need to be able to control myself and my desires.


Number of words: 1167