I was attacked by a group of pissed up chavs on my way home from work about 10 years ago...
During the melee I was stabbed in the back which punctured my lung. It must have happened pretty quickly because I didn't notice it until I had got home and tried to smoke a joint to calm myself down - the only pain I had was an achy feeling, as if I had been punched on the rib.

To cut a needlessly long story short, I was eventually taken to my local A&E where I was given a local anaesthetic (on the side of my chest, under my right arm) and a chest drain was inserted.
(A chest drain consists of a 1 inch wide rubber tube inserted into the cavity between your ribs and lung and connected to a simple water valve.)

Anyway, all was surprisingly well... until about 4 hours later at around midnight when the anaesthetic started to wear off. Cue 12 hours of the sickening sensation of a rubber tube touching your lung every time you took a breath! By morning I was literally in tears... so they gave me 2 paracetamol.
( mr.dogshit The world's premier anthropomorphic canine faeces, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 11:22, 1 reply)

Didn't need ASBOs in my day, we had Antiseptics
Me, aged 9, swinging in my back garden on that childhood delight: a swing made out of frayed blue rope, a tree and an old milk crate.

The rope snapped, of course. I thumped my skull, hard.

But the real pain came when my shocked hands clenched into an epic DEATH-GRIP on the swing. I'd have been fine if I'd been able to make myself let go; instead the unfeeling laws of motion viciously dragged me backwards across 4 metres of rough, gritty concrete.

Remember all those little scrapes you got when a child? Those nasty, painful little gritty things?

Ok, hold that memory and now enlarge it from your shoulder blade to butt-cheek in one huge raw wound.

I had my t-shirt literally shredded off me; they tell me I had left a grotesque trail of skin and blood on the concrete for the full 4 metres.

Childhood language isn't up to describing this kind of thing: I could only stagger over to mummy, dribbly-eyed and bleating I had 'scraped my back'. I looked OK from the front, so it was with weary patience that Mummy dearest got out of her deckchair to examine her bratling, only to visibly blench when she turned me around. She says my entire back resembled broken corned beef.

To crown it all, in order to wash my wounds and lever out the grit, the only antiseptic available = TCP. Oh god, the pain!

It had hurt enough already, but this was like being whipped by ropes of piss-drenched stinging nettles.

TCP: more efficient than super-nanny and a thousand ASBOs. No more cheeky swinging for me. Seriously, not EVER.
(IChewCandlewax, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 11:17, 1 reply)

Pre-emptive ouchies...
Not quite there yet, but on Wednesday, I'm off training with a few friends. The training is at one of these fighting gyms, and my friends on this occasion consist of:
My pub landlord and boss (Ex boxer)
Dr McDonald (Who's father was affectionately known as 'One Punch McDonald')
and Toshi (Japanese Olympic Judo Team Coach)

With Wednesday being the day after my visit to London's biggest Ale and Cider Festival, I'm pretty sure that this will be my ouchiest moment ever.

I'll send pics if I survive
(BlazingToast is burning down the house. With pure, hot funk, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 11:01, 1 reply)

Vasectomy, Electricity, shaving, gonads!
So, 18 months ago I did the decent thing and got myself booked in for a Vasectomy. The diagram the GP gave me said "He'll go in from the back of your conker bag, 2 tiny holes, neat and tidy. make sure it's all cleanly shaved". That night, 1 leg on the bath, electric clippers, new Mach3 blade - and i did a lovely neat job!

Next day, drop me strides, wife giggling (she was allowed to sit and watch - and she really watched too!) Doc has a look, has a feel, finds the old tubes. "ahh he says, i'll go in from the front instead" Now, i was a bit gutted at this point - i'd spent a long time 'around the back' making sure it was neat, smooth and tidy - now he wasn't even going to see my handy work! I'd only given the front a grade 2!

I digress.

Nut Number 1: Needle goes in with anesthetic, no problem so far. Feel him tugging on the tubes a bit, not so bad. He's giving me a running commentary which isn't helping and the wife is watching like he's giving a away free handbags from M&S. Next thing I hear this MASSIVE loud buzzing behind my head, coming from what looked like a generator used to power neumatic road digging drills. "Don't worry, it's just the Cauterizing machine" - then I can smell the burning. Nice. First bit of tube removed and pipes sizzled. Still, it's not as embarassing/painful as i feared and everything going smoothly. That is until...

Nut Number 2: He swaps sides, has a rummage again for the tube. Anesthetic, small incision, chop out the length of tube, time to seal it....

BBBUUZZZ -AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

"oh, I think I haven't anesthetized you properly" he says. "I must have grounded you" YES - RIGHT THRU MY GONAD! Direct electric shock to my right bollock. Now, the wife said i was atleast 3 feet off the bed. Oh my word, then came the dreaded ACHE but I was still being sewn up! It felt like my bollock was vibrarting for hours afterwards. I think i might have cried too.

Rest of the op went fine, however that knacker is STILL, to this day, super sensitive. Still, it's a good story I dine out on as it makes all mate mates wince.
(TheManofScience, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 10:59, 5 replies)

It's worse when you're nekkid...
Crete. The south part of the island. A little resort called Plakias, actually. A nudist beach. I was not exactly comfortable getting totally bare in front of many many other people but my fiance was (he had a massive cock and presumably wanted to share it with as many folks as possible)
We go into the sea... I wanted to wear my bikinin bottom in the water just in case a sea creature tried to get up my clunge and David thought that was silly.

He pulled my arm, I tripped over his foot and heard, even under the water, the snap of my second toe.

Embarrassed about being naked on a beach? Telling yourself it's ok everyone's naked nobody's looking..Until you break your toe so nude strangers are helping you walk back to your towel.

Two mile hobble back to the Hotel. Fucking agony. Never set right so now my toe does not bend.
( Sallyrsm, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 10:45, 2 replies)

A lot of these stories are good and everything
But I'm finding it hard to click "I like this" on them. It's like applauding their suffering.
(McChinaman banned, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 10:41, 2 replies)

My friend once told me that my entire life was a sit-com at my own expense
And that I even didn't realise it.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 10:39, Reply)

I right royally fucked up my knee and lower leg whilst playing rugby
I've lost the pictures of the many many staples and three mahoosive holes in my leg but heres just the top part of the pins keeping my right leg in one piece.


( Peej, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 10:34, 4 replies)

8 months of constant searing pain
A high velocity projectile smashing into my left eye and leaving a 10mm laceration across the lens, cornea and iris resulted in having the lens removed and stitches put INTO MY FUCKING EYEBALL.
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 10:16, 6 replies)

Leg Break
Broke my leg skiing on the first day of a school trip to Italy in 1977 - I know, very clichéd.

Both bones were broken just above the ankle. That wasn't too painful really.

The hospital didn't put a cast on for 3 days (to let the swelling go down) and gave me a general anaesthetic, so, again, no real pain. But then they x-rayed it to make sure the bones were set straight. They weren't.

Cue me being wheeled into a room (not knowing what was going on as it was all in Italian) and a doctor making a cut in the plaster where the break was. A nun held my knee and the doctor leant on my foot. I passed out, apparently shouting "CUUUNNNNTTTTT!!!!" at the top of my lungs.

Came around with a straight leg and a bolly off the nun for swearing.

It hurt. A lot.
( Blackdogmanguitar is out with Fat Larry's Jazz Band on, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 10:16, Reply)

Way back in the mists of time...
Well, 1990. I was seven years old, and Mum had sent me to karate classes to toughen me up a bit. And I was doing pretty well, having passed my first two gradings with flying colours. Well, I passed anyway. That day our sensei decided to teach us what to do if we were on the floor, and how to deal with any attackers coming your way. Simply put, you were to grab their head with your legs and slam it to the floor. My sparring partner was to be on the floor first, and I was supposed to be the attacker. Did I mention we were training on a hard floor? That fact is quite important.

So in I moved, and saw my partner's legs coming up at me and... woke up in Dad's car wondering why my head felt like the IRA were carrying out urban improvements in my skull and enjoying seeing the pretty colours.

The dojo invested in floor padding a week later.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Fri 30 Jul 2010, 10:02, Reply)

Weatherspoons gore
As fellow-sufferers will know, problems of the internal-plumbing-and-back-passage variety have a way of reducing inhibitions in every way imaginable, save erotically (where the area loses all possible appeal). Beyond the inappropriate restaurant conversations and revolting hypochondriac fact-swapping, you have achieved a point of acceptance where dropping your trousers, and proffering your rear to medical staff becomes as routine as a repeat prescription. 3 years on and multiple invasive procedures later, I suspect the NHS of playing some kind of cruel joke - I have had bits cut out, Botox injected (beautiful), rods rammed in, cameras filming, flashlights beamed, and, memorably, a water balloon inflated, all in the comfort of my rectum and lower intestine. And still no diagnosis.
After my first surgery, and being inexperienced, I was feeling so high on the drugs I went ahead to a previously booked weekend away with my other half to a seaside cottage. All was going well, I'd just eaten my first real meal in the local Weatherspoons and excused myself to go to the loo. No sooner had I started my meaningful business that I felt like I was having a chainsaw jammed up my backside and left there. The result, a horrifying splattering of fecal afterbirth in a pile of congealed blood and guts isn't what you go to your local Weatherspoon's for, to say the least. A&E and ye olde local NHS hospital curtly informed my weeping, bleeding, contorted and prostrate self that this is normal for this type of operation, and sent me home with a paracetamol. I spent the next week crying myself into a frenzy of pain and self-medicating over the counter.
(angina, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 10:02, 4 replies)

Falling on yer bum
Falling on yer bum hurts. It hurts more if you manage to fall directly on your coccyx (sp?)

What I didn't know, is that it hurts even more if you fall in such a way as to trap your buttock muscle 'twixt ground and pelvis. Thought I was going to A) pass out or B) hurl.

Couldn't walk properly for a week and had a lovely baboon-blue hemibottom for about a month.
(Kendal, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 10:00, 1 reply)

I broke my toe falling off my skateboard the day before I went to my sister's birthday party.
I was 27.

The social aspect of explaining why I was limping to everyone I met will live with me forever.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:53, 1 reply)

Smooth
Only last weekend, my girlfriend and I had returned from a wedding (not our own), and drunkenly swinging open the front door, our 5 month old kitten bolted out into the night. Helpfully, she had darted underneath our car, apparently to the exact centre, unreachable by human arms no matter how low you push your face into the tarmac and scrabble around with your fingers at full stretch going 'unnnnnnnghhh'.

A cunning plan was deployed, and a poking/scaring device was used (a stick), to whit she ran off down a nearby alleyway. Following her into my neighbour's back garden, I find the little runt sitting down, now looking like she's going to have a little nap. Grr.

The missus now runs up, cooing, takes her out of my arms and goes back inside, which involves going around our front garden wall. I decide i'm too cool for that sort of thing, heroic hunter/aragorn/drunken twat that I am and, lord of the rings heroic theme in my head, attempt to vault over the wall. Most of me makes it. Much of the skin on my trailing leg's shin does not. Stupid cat.
( SigmaX0 Dear Die Hard. You rock!, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:41, Reply)

Cartoon Classic
Like something out of Tom and Jerry, my brother stood on a rake.

Said rake obviously pitched up and spanged him in the chops, painfully hilarious? oh yes!

His pirouette and faceplant, no TEETHplant on the garden wall.....sickening! However, watching my dad sing "all i want for christmas is my two front teeth" every yuletime until his adult teeth grew in (about 7 years) was great
(Monkeystrumpet monkey. Monkey, MONKEY!!!, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:32, Reply)

Mrs Waxdat was in labour for 4 days with Waxdart jr
I don't even qualify and have nothing to add.

I hurt my knee on a bouncy castle last week. It gives me a twinge now and again.
(waxdart hello., Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:32, 2 replies)

Pneumothorax
I had 3 of them.

Having a doctor say he cant see your lung on an x-ray, is kinda funny.

Having him then tell you he will have to stick a needle in your chest - is not.

Sitting there whilst the push a thick needle (5mm+ diameter or so) into your chest, whilst your watching, isnt much fun.

This happened to me 6 times. Ive got scars on the side, back and front of my chest.

Then they operated and took some of my lung and all of my Pleura (chest lining) away.

hey presto - no more deflating.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:30, 6 replies)

Last night I had a hungry 8ft pilot snake mistake my hand for a mouse
In fairness to him, he could smell the recently-defrosted mice but not see them. He could, however, see my hand.

*Chomp*





Somewhat painful, but very funny at the same time. Especially as he'd had been wrapped around my shoulders and neck. I wish someone had been there to video it...
(Miraclefish How appropriate, you fight like a cow, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:28, 14 replies)

My old man took the tips of his index and middle finger off with a chop saw.
Enough said...
( currantbun is nubtnarruc backwards, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:23, Reply)

mouth ulcers aren't fun
RE TOPIC: we're going to have a few lovely pictures and a few more naueasting stories this week. Great.

I am cursed by having more ulcers than the rest of my immediate family, especially when I was in the period of having new braces fitted and they rubbed on the gum.

Many many times have I involintairly bitten down on my lip, and onto the ulcer. Once I did this with such force the ulcer burst.

When having a brace repalced the orthadentist accidentally (I was assured it was accidental) ripped open the ulcer with one of the tools he was using. (sharp spiky thing into ulcer and twitched. Mouth full of blood and other such stuff)

Multiple ulcers at the same time. (on the tongue itself and lower lip)

Some very very salty food (humm, maybe I shouldnt of eaten tha...ouch)
(tb2571989 dies at precisely, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:23, 1 reply)

Swingfail
Back in Juniors (around 11/12) i had a Girlfriend. This meant that every day after lunch, a small female would proudly bring me a 10p mixup and retire to her giggling friends. This was all done with only a muttered "er thanks" during the whole loving transaction. If only life was still this simple.....

Anyways I digress, our "relationship" eventually developed to almost actual conversation and one day she invited me to hers for tea. Terror enveloped my world, dreading that i might actually be alone with this curious species known to weaken bigger and stronger men. Rumour was rife that this was obviously a ploy to get me into a kissable position (not widely explored at this point) of which we wee men were vaugely aware involved tongues.

After a uneventful but enjoyable fish fingers and chips we were sent out to play in the park round the corner. The fresh air was intoxicating after the nicotine haze and polite questioning the kitchen had brought. We played on the roundabout, the chickens on springs things and came to the Big Swings. These 20ft behemoths were great and we even started to chat freely, nerves shredded away and i started to realise that my penny chew bringing strumpet was in fact a gem, hanging on my every word and giggling at my badly remembered/understood rude jokes.

She suggested another play apparatus (i forget which) and instead of stopping the swing I slid off the at the apex of its trajectory, landing neatly on my toes. She was amazed at my act of derring-do and blatent disregard to my own safety and dared me to do it from higher, which i did with aplomb.

Not content with this exit method and keen to further exite the small crowd that was now watching I got back up to full height, standing on the swing and thrusting the seat with every muscle i had in my puny legs. Instead of sliding off my arse as usual though, mid swing i had the brainwave of jumping off whilst standing! My Coup de grâce to the crowd now baying for bigger thrills and death defying aerial prowess.
As i pushed for takeoff the seat offered no resistance, my launchpad had become thin air and i fell......

I picked myself up, not realising a silence had descended upon the playpark. Vaguely aware of my bruised ego and a vacuum where there had been the shrills of children enjoying themselves I looked to brush myself down and noticed my once-white Bart Simpson "dont have a cow man" t-shirt was now washed with crimson. My face ached and the object of my affections was deathly pale, looking at me with an :-O face.

Blood was now flowing freely from my nose and mouth and I was led, back to where an hour before the only deep red had been of fish fingers dipped in tomato sauce. I was cleaned up and taken home to my poor mother who screamed at the sight of me. Looking back I shudder to think how she would have reacted if she'd seen me at my worst, losing blood from my whole face at a rate of knots.

The pain eventually came once the shock wore off and I spent an agonising night in hospital before they doped me up good, waited until the swelling subsided and rebroke my nose in order to set it straight.

My injuries: A completely smashed nose, my teeth penetrated my top lip leaving a gaping wound, both wrists were sprained and an ankle too.

My nose has never looked straight since but i was told recently it was "interesting in a good way".... its a constant reminder that women are sent by the devil, to lure you with sweeties then crush you on the rocks.

A bit lengthy, but its my biggest ouch
(Monkeystrumpet monkey. Monkey, MONKEY!!!, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:18, Reply)

Vasectomy reversal, post op
testicles the size of large grapefruit (really)but a nice shiny purple colour with two 5mm clear plastic drain tubes, one out of each side, full of blood and other fluids. Also the physical inability to stand, sit or lie down without excruciating pain.
Luckily, it only lasted 2 agonisingly long weeks but I did have beautiful twin daughters a year later so it was all worth it.
(wallynothere rnot without protection, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:14, Reply)

Broken Bones
Last week I broke a bone for the second time in my life.

The first time I was 15, in a park across the road from the laundrette where my mum was doing our washing because our machine had packed in (stupid Currys). I went on the swing, swung, higher and higher...

And then hit the ground. These were the days before they put that relatively soft tarmacy stuff on top of the concrete.

A nice man nearby phoned an ambulance and went to get my mum. The doctor said later I'd hit the ground backwards at about 50 mph. I fractured the top part of my back and was in hospital for 6 days, then home for 4 weeks. At least school sent work home, oh joy...

We later discovered that the underneath of the swing was cracked and that's why it couldn't support my weight. When I spoke to the council to ask them to fix it, they said "oh no, it's not broken, you must have been too heavy." It was an adult swing and I weighed 6.5 stone at the time....

Anyway, fast forward ten years. Saturday afternoon, just arrived at a friend's party, had a coke and half a burger and I go to the bathroom. I look at the step before me. It's one of those houses where there is a foot drop between the step and the stone floor. "Wow," I think, "That's a bit steep, I better be careful."

I don't remember anything next apart from landing so hard on my right side that I thought I was going to pass out.

My friend Cynthia found me and propped me up in the kitchen with a bag of peas on my foot, then Mr Cakelady came in from the garden and took me to hospital - turns out I'd fractured my 5th metatarsal. Lovely. Now I am in a big plaster cast until Monday when (hopefully) it gets swapped for a lighter, fibreglass one.

My house (b3ta member DracoRattus) and Mr Cakelady have been awesome, bringing me stuff to do and moving things to within my limited reach.

At least the bulky cast makes my thigh look thin in comparison. Every cloud....

Also: I'm supposed to be going to China in just over 2 weeks. Anyone have experience on crutches in Beijing? I've heard some of the Great Wall is now disabled friendly...
( cakelady, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:06, 11 replies)

My purple bum
A few years ago, out walking the dog, I stepped onto a square raised drain cover. It swivelled on two corners, leaving a triangular gap down which I dropped like a lead weight.

Luckily, my large arse wedged me firmly in place, 7' above the bottom of the concrete drain. Could have had a broken leg or two and some smashed teeth on the way down.

Didn't hurt much but my thighs and buttocks bruised up spectacularly and my entire backside turned purple. An awesome sight, like a sunset in Hell.

A few days later I flew out to Hungary.
Hah, I thought, Airport Security, what do YOU know of ME?
You may x-ray my hand luggage, but can you tell that I have A PURPLE ARSE?
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:05, 1 reply)

Touch your ear-lobe.
Now, move your finger towards your skull. See that 'boney' bit at the back of your head directly behind your ear? Getting stung by a wasp there is fucking painful.

I've had my shin broken, head split open a couple of times, and i've sliced my thumb open down to the bone with a Stanley knife, but absolutely nothing comes close to the pain of that little fucker stabbing my in the head.
(god_is_a_ghoti Carpe Deum., Fri 30 Jul 2010, 9:02, 4 replies)

Never talk back to a man holding a swab
This is my first ever pearoast. I feel like I've arrived.

Last year I decided (or, more accurately, was told) to get myself a full-blown sexual health check for the first time ever. Yes I know it's a bit shit waiting 30 years to ensure that your bollocks aren't a breeding ground for horrific parasites capable of causing untold agony to those they are inflicted upon - imagine finding out that you've been housing Piers Morgan in your jangly danglers - but I've hardly been distributing the Foxtrot mojo far and wide during my time on this earth. And I've heard what goes on in those sex check-ups, and frankly I was scared.

I swear the waiting room at the hospital is designed to be like a mental chamber of horrors for anyone waiting to discover if they'll ever go bareback again. Everywhere you look there's an "educational" pamphlet about one of the many horrific diseases you've probably got, you disgusting boy. The only other reading material available was Men's Health, as if I didn't feel insecure enough already.

Eventually the Doctor beckons me through and we start compiling a sexual history for me. Because what I'm about to have done isn't humiliating enough. I'm doing OK - this appears to be the only situation where it's alright to tell another bloke that not many women have seen fit to fuck you - when he drops an unexpected bombshell, although by definition I think most bombshells are unexpected, otherwise they're just... bombs? Shells? Answers on a postcard. Or in the replies. That makes more sense.

"Have you ever had a sexual experience with a man?"

Ah. Well, yes. When I was 22 I may have indulged eversoslightly in what could politely be termed a great big drug-fuelled seven-person orgy. And this being part of my experimental phase, there was a bit of man-on-man action going on. I mention this and the medical professional looks at me like I've just ritually slaughtered his firstborn. This upsets me.

My doctor was late 50's/early 60's and of Indian origin, judging by his accent. He may have personal, moral or religious objections to homosexuality. Frankly, I don't give a shit, homophobia is completely unacceptable in my opinion and he's a bloody doctor - he's not supposed to judge me unless I've strolled into A&E with cocaine falling out of my nostrils, clutching a plastic bag full of severed heads and complaining of a nosebleed, accelerated heartbeat and hallucinations.

He asks if I'm bisexual, visibly disgusted by the concept. Bridling, I reply that I don't count myself as such because I haven't had any sexual contact with a man in several years, and I would have thought that was obvious from the sexual history we've just been compiling.

I am slightly worried by the glint in his eye as he beckons me into the next room and invites me to sit down.

First of all, he explains, he needs to swab my throat. This wouldn't be necessary if I wasn't a filthy bumboy, he fails to add but is obviously thinking. Next comes the part I was dreading until my righteous indignation diverted my mind from the horrific prospect of having a swab rammed down my jap's eye - namely, the horrific prospect of having a swab rammed down my jap's eye.

At this point, I am regretting giving the doctor any lip. As it were.

Thankfully, homophobic or otherwise he is professional enough not to force my cock to deep throat a swab. It was a bit rubbish, as I'm sure many of you know, but at least it was over quickly. Job done. Let's go home and drink beer and eat meat and watch Top Gear until I feel masculated again.

"If you could roll over onto your side Mr Foxtrot, I just need to get an anal swab"

I ask you, is there a worse sentence in the English language? That even beats out "Oasis have reformed" for sheer, unbridled horror. I begin to protest that I've never had anal sex (I actually haven't, well, not as a receiver anyway) but from his point of view I'm already a disgusting pervert, "compulsive liar" isn't a huge assumptive leap and he's just doing his job... Resigned to my fate I await the first ever invasion of my trademan's entrance by another man. Trying to alleviate my tension far enough to get the damn thing into my understandably puckered chutney chute, he jokes that I ought to enjoy this.

Hubris aside, with hindsight my response was a phenomenally dumb thing to say to prejudiced doctor with a swab in his hand.

"You'll need three fingers for me to enjoy it, darling"

Length? Really?
(Darth Foxtrot A one-man army dedicated to making fetch happen, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 8:57, 12 replies)

A picture paints a thousand words
The words being, of course "Oh My Fucking Christ" repeated 250 times.

I'm not going into details on this, mainly because of flashing back to the chopper ride to hospital.

NSFW i75.photobucket.com/albums/i284/jbramwells/legwound1.jpg Really really NSFW.
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 8:52, 2 replies)

spondylolisthesis
I had something called spondylolisthesis (try pronouncing that after a few pints). Unbelievable leg pain as a result, couldn’t walk more than 100ft or so without having to stop to rest. Utter AGONY. The pain couldn’t have been worse if I had cut my leg off with a blunt knife. You get a lot of strange looks walking down the street with tears in your eyes stopping every minute or 2 to let the pain fade.

To cure this I had three vertebrae fused together in my lower back and titanium rods & bolts inserted to hold it all. 10 days in hospital (including 4 in intensive care) and I had to be helped to teach my body how to walk again. Lovely intravenous morphine though & three months off work on full pay to recover. The op worked & I no longer get the pain.

Cool scar too – 50 staples left my back look like it had a zip on it
(lkjshaglkasjdhglkhjz lkcvl; g;aodh;owih, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 8:45, 2 replies)

I don't consider myself accident prone...
...but when assessing my last 35yrs + for stories for this QoTW, i find i have plenty to offer.

Aged about 7, playing with friends on our drive where my dad had strategically placed some large concrete flag stones leaning against the wall to be used later. I think it's a good idea to pull one towards me, miscalculate the weight and it falls towards me, i don't get my right foot our of the way quick enough and 'splat'. When we get to A&E, i can see inside my big toe. I pass out. Several weeks of foot in a cast. Itchy.

Aged about 9, walking home from cubs/scouts (whatever it was) on a very cold and icy night. The path angles down slightly and my feet disappear away from me, my head hits the ground hard and the next thing i remember i'm waking in my bed some 12 hrs later with my arm in a sling (cracked collar bone)

My mum says that, during the time at the A&E, I kept asking what my name was, who she was, and where i was. They kept making names up (Mickey Mouse, Bagpuss, etc) knowing i'd forget a short time later.

Aged 19, on holiday with the current Mrs, waterskiing on Windermere. I start to get the hang of it, moving weight from ski to ski and learning how to control. The boat driver suggests i try and go outside the wake, at which point i lean too far forward, ski's dig in and i do a face plant followed by a hyperextension of my legs and my feet kicking the back of my head. Back cracks and a pain like never before. I get out of the lake and spend the next two days sat very still in a chair (rather than going to a hospital like a normal person). I've had regular lower back problems ever since - a cracked vertebrae apparently.

Aged 30 something, doing a job which required me to run after someone, i fell badly tit over feet and bent the tip of my right ring finger backwards which shattered the bone and sent the tendon back up the finger. Operated on to re-attach the tendon with a pin (which was bigger than the finger itself) and then several weeks of boredom. However, the ouch came when removing the stitches. The skin had grown over the 6 stitches and each one had to be dug out before they could get the knife under to cut. it took about two hours. i was sweating like a gerbil in a gaybar.

Then, three months later, i had another op to remove the pin and, yes you guessed, had to have them removed again.

Fuck running.
( Another_tragic_case wished he hadn't eaten all the cake, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 8:23, Reply)