School break - the painful beginning

At about 10:00 on the last day of the term, September 23, I got the 4th toe on my right foot stuck in a drain grate. When I looked down, there was more blood than toe visible. On further examination, the toe was sagging below the others, and I looked up and said to my horrified class, "Yup. That's broken." Thank you to Heyha for letting me lean on him, and the kind teacher who happened to be motorcycling past - both of these people allowed me to get to the nurse's office without crawling.

In the nurse's office, my classmates cleaned up the wound as best they could. Anyway, any American readers are wondering why my classmates were cleaning my wound. I'd been to the office once before with a smaller cut on my foot (this one had happened earlier, while swimming, and reopened), and that time also, students applied disinfectant and a bandage. It is apparently just the way things are done.

The earlier cut was thanks to one of these if I'm not mistaken.

I want to make it clear that I am very thankful to my classmates for being overall good doctors and stoically handling a lot of blood, including cleaning the floor despite my protests that I could help, but there was one slight issue - they didn't understand when I said "that's broken." They were treating my broken toe as a simple skin wound which meant a lot of pain from yanking it around. It all went mostly well.

Post-op snapchat

We then went to the hospital, in the tug-of-war coach's car. I don't know his name, but thank you. Teacher Rongrath, the head of the English Program came along as well.

In the hospital, we learned I have a torn tendon in addition to the broken bone, and despite suturing it back together, I may never be able to lift up the toe again. There was also a lengthy cleaning process in which they had to open the wound further to clean inside, and a monster syringe of antibiotics, and some prescription pain pills (Tylenol, smaller dose than normal).

So then the local "school bus" driver came to pick us up in his songteau. I sat and waited at home for Uncle อ้วน (Uan / fat) to take us to Bangkok. We went on the highway rather than the tollway, which is more direct, but much, much slower, so it was interesting to see some actual scenery, but less so to sit in a car with my 4th toe on fire for several hours.

The next day in Bangkok, we went to see a doctor at Bangkok Hospital, and he gave me further good news about the long term prognosis: because of the way it is broken, the toe will develop arthritis, which can be surgically fixed now or once it has developed, but there's also a good chance it will be painless since it is just one toe.

The first four or so days were spent in excruciating pain with a full-foot brace to keep the toe immobilized. Now, a little over 20 days later, it doesn't hurt anymore and I only need the brace if I'm going out to walk a reasonably long distance. Life is good mans.