"Sprain of ankle, side unspecified."

This was the brief diagnosis written on the card which bears my name and which is signed by Dr. Tawhidi of the Iranian hospital.

It started on Monday evening, when I took the rash decision of carrying the TV down the stair flight on my own, a slight miscalculation and my feet lost the harmony with the steps, so I ended up twisting my ankle.

Then I found myself in the emergency section of the Iranian hospital, the doctor on duty asked me to get my feet x-rayed, and so I did. 'Al Hamdulilah' he said, 'there is no fraction'…
He looked back at my swollen foot and then followed up: 'but we have tamazek arbeta' (rupture of splints)..'so we have to put a protective cast for you, it should stay there 3 weeks at least'…

I passed by the pharmacy in my way back home that evening, to pick up a pair of crutches and pain killers. I've braced my self for some painful days ahead, but to my surprise, the source of the pain was not my twisted feet, it was my shoulders and my armpits; maneuvering on crutches is easy as long as you have a sturdy arms and shoulders…

When I drove to the office two days later, I was received like the early leaders of conquest (istikbal al fat7een), I don't know why but it seemed to me that whoever can weather a twisted ankle (or sprain of ankle as what Dr. Tawhidi) should be deemed as a hero.

Dr. Tawhidi is the orthopedist at the Iranian hospital; I visited him two days ago to get a confirmation on the initial diagnosis, he doesn't speak English, nor does he speak Arabic. His beautiful Iranian nurse has done all the translation (from Arabic to Farsi and vice versa), the only thing Dr. Tawhidi said to me directly, when his nurse translated my question of how long I should keep my feet stuck in the gypsum, he looked at me and proudly said: 'miiniimum two weeks'

All this has happened in the midst of moving to a new place, in fact, the minor injury which I've sustained was one of the results of this move, maybe I should have relied on professional movers, but there is no use for regrets now, what happened has happened.

So dear friends, apologies for being uncommunicative recently, it might take me a while before replying to all your comments, I still don't have an internet connection at my new place, and given the current constraint on my mobility, I won't be able to apply for this connection soon, but I promise to visit your blogs as soon as I can.. in the mean time folks, stay safe and most importantly…:

WATCH YOUR STEPS!

كل ذي عاهة جبار

Please watch and tell me what you think...

At the Gym...

He was taking a shower. His arms felt sore as he was rubbing his body after the strenuous workout. It felt good under the hot water. Despite the embarrassment caused by the slightly obscured glass partition, that separated him from the chap who’s having a shower next door (booth).
Then, there was a spree of unpleasant events; the air-conditioned breeze has almost stopped blowing, the thrust of hot water spouting from the shower head has receded significantly, when he opened his eyes to see what was happening, he couldn’t actually see what was happening; for it was totally dark. He figured that the lights have been switched off. Awakening from his little (rub-your-sore-muscle-with-hot-water) pleasure, he realized that there is a power outage at the Gym…
Although the shower cubicles were located at an extension from within the locker room- which in its place was connected to the gym through a kinking lobby, he could hear the people as far as the gym, yelling, shouting, whistling, booing, cheering….they seemed to be having fun, but for how long this high spirited attitude could be maintained?
Horrified at the sudden collapse of civility, he decided to stay in his shower cubicle. Feeling the heat and the humidity brewing heavily in the place, he tilted the water tap to ‘cold’, and sat down at the floor mat (which was more like a perforated plastic grating). As he rested his back on the smooth ceramics, he felt a slight vibration emanating from the walls ‘it must be that people are rushing down from the upper floor’ he thought…’is there an evacuation underway?’.
Images of a stampede of naked people popped up to his mind. It must be his subconscious reflecting earlier gripes about the shameless nudity in the locker room, he thought. In order to keep his calm, he tried to think of a plausible course of action to get his ass (which has now registered the distinctive imprints of the flooring mat) out of this mess.
The dim light of the emergency lamp has become more imminent with the passage of time. It was mounted high on the wall, with the word ‘exit’ pointing toward the escape route. Escape? How the hell could he escape without his clothes on? But it was getting hot and humid, and it’s become harder and harder to stay steadfast in this steam room. If he doesn’t run out in five minutes he might as well end up becoming a boiled lumps of stiff muscles.
He needs to run…
He figured that the shorter way to escape was through the corridor, past the reception and then out toward the outdoor swimming pool. He could wait there as long as it might take for the power to be restored. He wound the towel around his body and then inflicted a firm node around his waist (taking into account the ‘naked stampede’ that he’s about to encounter). But as he was unlocking the cubicle door, the lights were turned on back again, and he saw what he was trying to avoid seeing since the ordeal has started; a naked guy was running ahead of him toward the exit.
But this unfortunate observation was immediately belittled by more obvious and more important fact; the power has been restored.
He turned and strode back to his shower cubicle, gradually relapsing back into the (rub-your-sore-muscles-with-hot-water) pleasure.
As he was ambling in his way back home later in the evening, he remembered the old Egyptian saying and muttered:“eli ekhtasho matto” …”those who have gotten embarrassed, have died!”