Pins
Not the most painful, but certainly my most memorable.

Broke the bones in my wrist at 14 (not my wanking arm, thankfully) and it was a bugger to set. After having it in cast for two weeks the surgeons were *shocked* to discover the bones had "shifted around" when unsupported in my arm, and the ends weren't magically going to knit together if they weren't kept in place.

So, they put me under and jammed a couple of metal pins through the bones. Six weeks later it was time to have them out, and it wasn't a pretty sight once the cast came off.

I wasn't too apprehensive as I assumed they'd done this a million times before, so I sat in a little room with my mum as an indian doctor came in with his hands in his pockets and asked to have a look.
I suddenly became very nervous when, apropos of nothing, this guy with a near-impenetrable accent and total inability to feign interest started asking me about hobbies and sports ("Do you like cricket?") He then turned his back so he was between my mum and my arm, and drew a hefty pair of pliers out of his pocket.


It's a funny thing that you can't actually remember pain (I suppose it would be psychologically crippling if we could) but what I *do* remember is the godawful SOUND of metal dragging on bone as this steel wire was pulled clean out of my arm. I remember that it was so painful that I went temporarily blind, but the main thing that sticks in my mind was that noise. Like drawing the sword from the stone, only the sword was one of those steels you use for sharpening kitchen knives, the crystal ring was completely muffled by arm-meat, and there was an added screech as of chalk on a blackboard.

Perhaps it wouldn't have cemented itself in my memory, but the repeat performance came ten seconds later as Pin Two was extracted. The second one was immediately followed by a torrent of blood pouring from what looked like an untidy bullet wound.


I now distrust any medical professional who expresses an off-hand interest in my lifestyle (unless she's pretty), and I despise cricket on an almost spiritual level. Also, I shudder involuntarily when removing tent-pegs from stoney ground.

Length? A couple of inches or so, and bent at one end.
(PyroTyger Bum Fiasco, Thu 29 Jul 2010, 18:05, closed)