Knee operation
I was 10 years old when this happened - 27 years ago - but the pain lives with me now.

I was larking about innocently at home with my siblings one day when I knelt on the floor and felt a sudden sharp pain. It was excruciating, but the only sign of something being up was a tiny scratch on my knee.

After a day of me walking around in sheer agony, my parents decided to take me to the hospital. An X-ray revealed that I'd somehow managed to get a sewing needle lodged behind my kneecap.

So I had an operation under local anaesthetic to remove it. Only problem was, it was a tricky bugger to get out, and the more the doc dug around in my knee, the further he pushed the needle into my leg. This went on long enough that after a while the anaesthetic wore off...

Yes, I had doctors digging around inside my knee - a sensitive joint at the best of times - with no anaesthetic. Did I scream? You betcha.

Eventually, they gave up and stitched me up, then had another go a few days later with me under general anaesthetic. I heard later that they'd used a massive electromagnet to draw it out. Why couldn't they have done that first time, the motherfuckers?
( smutch, Fri 30 Jul 2010, 16:15, Reply)