When I started to go back to the office, I did so by bike. We live two miles from the office as the crow flies. The drive can sometimes take as long as 20 or 30 minutes depending on the traffic. We live near a school. Following the 26-year civil war, anyone who could afford to drive their kid to school did because school busses were frequent targets of terrorist bombers. School drop off and pick ups create complete gridlock for miles. Parents park a mile from school and walk their child to the front door because it is faster than making that last stretch by car. Many hire cars and drivers who drop the child off in the morning then sit in their car all day long, snoozing fitfully in the midday heat until the afternoon and school lets out. The situation, already barely tenable, was exacerbated by the pandemic. Riding my bike cut the commute in half.
Though riding a bicycle in Colombo rush hour traffic presents other challenges. At best, it is complete pandemonium, a chaotic, tangled mass of metal, cars, tuk-tuks, scooters, steel, single-gear bicycles, the occasional ox-drawn cart, street dogs, lorries, and busses, steel death boxes, brightly painted with white babies and Greek gods and goddesses, wielding lighting and brandishing medieval weaponry, driven by betel-chomping drivers who have less control over the death box than a runaway locomotive hurtling along the tracks, the betel leaf a bright red hallucinogenic, tobacco-like substance that stains gums and spurts from the lips in a thick, blood-red syrup, splattering and staining pavement when spit. None of which follow any semblance of traffic law other than the chaos theory as espoused by Dr. Ian Malcolm in "Jurassic Park".
At the beginning of the pandemic, I took some solace in the fact I was much more likely to die -- statistically speaking -- on my bike than by the virus. You have to ride on a wing and a prayer, like a surfer on the point of a wave waiting to crash. You just hope you make it to your destination before it does. You end up placing a lot of faith in your fellow man, some of which -- as I found out on the morning Russia invaded Ukraine -- can be misplaced.
I reached the first intersection from the house, rolling slowly next to a tuk-tuk, when we were all cut off by a car blasting out of nowhere. At intersections, traffic doesn't stop. There is no yielding. More like a clumsy dance of two (or in this case 10-15) trying to ease past one another. Most traffic plows through, a couple of quick honks to say get out of the way or else. I unclipped from my right pedal, but was already tipping to the left side. I didn't unclip my left foot in time and fell over. Embarrassed more than hurt, I bounced up, got back on the bike, and made it through the intersection.
No one stopped to help me up, but I credit that to how quickly I was up and back on the bike. As I continued on my way to work, a scooter pulled up next to me, honking. I didn't think anything of it. People honk incessantly. The guy on the back of the scooter pointed at my leg. I looked down and saw grease and blood and decided to turn around and head home.
When I walked in the front door, Elise thought I had forgotten something. The look on her face told me the cut was worse than I thought, more than a smear of black bicycle grease, despite the fact I felt little pain and could walk. "We need to call the med unit."
I sat on the floor, a paper towel and ice pack on my leg as Elise threw our passports in my backpack. When we pulled up in front of the emergency room, a buzzing crowd of nurses in blue scrubs met to welcome us into the hive; they were expecting us.
They sat me in a wheelchair and rolled me to the far corner of the ER. I flopped face down on a gurney. The tissue paper covering the bed quickly dissolved into tatters beneath my sweaty body; I still had my cycling bib on. I swatted a small spider on the pillow, and mosquitos hovered in formations of clouds, some blowing through like weather.
The attending asked me several questions. Most I don't remember now. Did I hit my head? Did anything else hurt? Was I wearing a helmets? Was I sure I didn't hit my head? We were soon joined by an energetic, spritely man named Farsha, the international concierge. It was clear from the start Farsha's background was in hospitality. A surfer from Maldives with better-than-serviceble English, Farsha treated us as though we were checking into the Four Seasons, rather than on what we hoped was a quick visit to the ER (Spoiler alert: it wasn't). He was like Puck or the narrator in a Shakespearan comedy, introducing the main players as they strode on stage and keeping a running commentary on what would happen next.
What would happen next? When the surgeon showed he explained he'd have to put me under in order to properly clean out the wound. Okay.
The surgeon was already on his way. A cursory cleaning of the area around the wound had me crushing the tissue paper pillow in my fists and cursing into it. There would be a tetanus shot, blood drawn, a failed IV insertion (right hand), succesful IV insertion (left hand), RAT test, and the most painfully intrusive PCR test of my life (still don't have COVID).
Elise had left to fill out paperwork and came back in tears after the nurse has thrust a cotton swab into the frontal lobe of her brain. She chewed out three nurses and likely got the woman fired. The PCR test was worse than slicing my calf open to the tendon.
Farsha wheeled me for x-rays. The radiologist was a stooped Sri Lankan hiding behind the lead-lined partition in the room, peeking through the window like Bruce Banner waiting for the gamma bomb to go off. He reminded me of the bespectacled curmudgeon from "Up", grumbling and shuffling his way through his work day. He x-rayed my left leg. "Umm...I hurt my right leg," I told him. He moved the plate and retreated behind his shield without saying a word.
Since I had half a bagel before leaving the house, we would have to wait until 2:00 for the surgery. They checked me into room 11 on the 11th floor and spent an inordinate amount of time looking for the remote control to the TV; I had little interest in cricket at that point.
1:45 came quickly, and I changed out of my cycling kit and into a backless gown. They tried taking off my wedding ring. "It won't come off," I told them, but they tried anyway.
I've never been wheeled to surgery. Ceiling tiles pass overhead in a blur, geometric shapes, rectangles inside rectangles, blinding fluorescent tubes. You quickly become disoriented and dizzy, taking corners faster than you like. In elevator cars, people squeeze against the side rails of the bed, shoving in and out of the elevator, pushing buttons. You stop in the middle of hallways. People look down on your from behind surgical masks. They smile. Or don't. It's hard to tell. They try to take my wedding ring off again, the give up and tape gauze over it.
I would change gurneys twice, then slide onto the operating table. "Careful," a large, cheery nurse cautioned. "The table is small." At some point, the decision was made not to put me all the way under; I'd get an epidural instead. They curled me into a ball and ran their fingers along the bumps of my spine. Again, I clutched the pillow to my chest, burying my face in it, wanting to scream as the needle slid between the notches in my vertebrae. As they laid me back down and the anesthesia slowly started working its way down my legs, I had the vague notion I should be on my stomach and not on my back. It was only after I was completely numb from the waist down and the surgeon entered the room to scrub in that they decided to flip me on to my stomach. By that time, my legs were useless. I had to be turned over unceremoniously, by the orderly, flipped over like a flapjack in the paint.
I slightly panicked as the surgeon started working. I could feel the pressure of his fingers though there was no pain. The anesthesiologist sagely put something to calm me down in my IV.
Two hours later, I returned to Elise waiting for me in room 11. She would have to stay with me all day because I needed an "advocate ", someone yo tell the nurse when I had to use the bathroom even though I was completely lucid, an adult, and totally capable of telling the nurse myself when I had to go to the bathroom.
It was 4:00, Clementine would soon be returning home from school, and Morgan would meet her. There was nothing to do now except wait for the anesthesia to wear off. I could leave as soon as 1) my blood pressure came up, 2) I could stand, and 3) I could make the YOUR-eens.
The nurse that brought me back to the room seemed very keen I make the YOUR-eens. She must have said it three times and insisted I press the call button when I was ready to make the YOUR-eens.
The day had brought unexpected relief. From the 11th floor, we had impressive views of the Lotus Tower, Pettah, the port in the distance, an apartment building next door. I watched pelicans soar over and around the building. Drying laundry fluttered like pennants from balcony railings and left me wondering how the wind didn't pull the laundry free and toss it to the street below. I watched as the afternoon light grew more sullen and golden. It rained briefly, a light splattering, and I saw rain run down cracks in the hospital facade and in rivulets over tiles, all things I could see everyday had I been looking for them but often missed for rushing through the day.
I experienced and odd and welcome sense of freedom. It took falling off my bike and slicing my leg open for work to finally leave me alone. As if to say, "It's okay. You know what? You've done enough. Will let someone else write this memo or take the lead on this project." You don't even get that kind of relief on weekends or holiday.
Elise and I were brought dinner, rice and curry. We opted for the less spicy version which still came with a dried chili pepper on time. We were glad we didn't order the normal version. And as the light outside faded and the city lights winked on in the twilight, I contemplated attempting to make the YOUR-eens.
Elise watched the door while I tried to pee into a plastic container shaped like a gas can. I put it between my legs, but realized just as I started to relieve myself that my feet were still elevated. Gravity would send my YOUR-een cascading back into my lap if I didn't readjust my position quickly. With little feeling having returned to my nether regions, it was difficult to know when I was done. Somehow, I managed to finish and passed the plastic pitcher of pee to Elise. She squealed when I told her it was leaking. We left it in the sink in the bathroom in case we had to show it as evidence I had made the YOUR-eens.
It would take several hours to regain feeling in my legs and, sadly, several more hours to wait to be discharged. We would finally make it home shortly before midnight, three layers of stitches holding my calf together. The laceration missed my nerves, major arteries, and tendon. I feel very lucky it wasn't worse than it was. I can't wait to ride my bike again.
