Surgical Kneekick

The trepidation and excitement could not be quelled as the crowd roared loudly for a deciding victory in the final minute. As my eyes met those of my teammates in silence, the whistle blared. The rugby ball moved down a trajectory headed towards my hands, but as I see it approach"Pop! I blacked out. I woke to a sharp pain piercing through my body, but I still tried to reach for the dead ball. Movement only increased the pain. I shut my eyes and an on-rush of tears met the questions on the faces that confronted me.

May 2008 is still clear in my mind. I was rushed to a nearby hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the x-rays came out negative for any severe form of injury. Verdict: minor muscle cramps. A few weeks later, I was again in a soccer match with my school team. Within five minutes of the game, I had heard the same popping sound "but this time no more tears came, I knew it was beyond muscle cramps. I was filled with expectancy. The doctors decided on an MRI. Verdict: torn ACL, MCL, and meniscus "I only had one ligament holding my knee.

            I was scheduled for operation on August 14, 2009 6am. We had flown to Korea the day before. Soon I found myself in the operation room, amongst unfamiliar faces masked in green. Pitch black. I woke up with a burning sensation in my throat from the full anesthesia I was given. The discomfort was a “normal reaction,” so nobody paid attention to my frantic gestures; it was all a painful shock to me, since nobody had told me what to expect.

That whole night, I couldn’t drink water to ensure that I cough out the phlegm and avoid pneumonia. Worn out, I stayed in bed the next few days, deprived of sufficient oxygen, refusing to eat or respond. I was prohibited from playing contact sports"the only kind of sports I participated in. Following the operation, I had to stay in a wheelchair for six weeks and switch to crutches for two weeks after. I was resigned to missing my first six weeks of high school. One day, I wheeled myself outside for some fresh air. It felt good to be out. For the first time in a few months, I genuinely smiled. The hospital was a place where sick people got sicker and lonelier. Warmth was fleeting there, and so were smiles.

Bored and mentally drained from the operation, I decided to continue my “Great Kindness Challenge” which I began in my sophomore year. There are 50 missions, and since I was in a wheelchair, the most convenient was Mission 50:

Create your own good deed.

Collecting Smiles. It was perfect for this place. I wandered around the hospital, initiating conversations with different people.

I met a volleyball player who said his disability was no big deal, though I heard the quiver in his voice. He had torn his ACL because his coach kept making him play threatening his that he will not make it to a volleyball college if he did not even with a partial injury already. So he did and ended up here; yet the coach denied any responsibility for the mishap. An old woman I met in the hospital lived her whole life lifting and transporting heavy boxes to send her kids to school. She lost both of her meniscuses and had severe arthritis as a consequence.  There was a mother who had been sitting at a bus stop when a bus driven by a drunken driver ran over her, leaving her as one of only three people who survived the crash. Her 4-year-old twins were alone at home; she could not afford a caregiver.

I talked with each individual as if we were old friends returning after being parted for so long, telling their stories, keeping our lived threaded. That day I collected 19 smiles in a wheelchair by asking the question, “Are you happy now?” Everyone answered, “Of course, because I know I’m going to be better.”

The healing power of medicine amazed me. I’ve heard of mirror neurons that allow us to “put ourselves in another person’s shoes.” I’ve heard of clefts healed by simple stitching. But never did I imagine that medicine would create an everlasting bond. To me, hospitals and doctors seemed disjointed from everything else. Each of the friends I made during my stay while recuperating came from a different background, a different generation, and economic circumstance. However, we connected through our sufferings and derived joy in listening to each other. The only thing we had in common were the stories we wove into each other’s consciousness. The experience made me think twice about the one thing I previously thought I never wanted to do in my life"practice healing through medicine.

When I upgraded to using crutches, I started going out. However, I found myself unable to go up certain steps due to their steepness and lack of a ramp. Walking around was difficult because the street pavements had huge cracks and were uneven. It was hard to push doors open. The everyday activities that I was accustomed to became obstacles. People stared at me. Then it dawned on me why I rarely see disabled people in public. The answer was obvious, yet it never occurred to me until I lived a two-week life of one. Although I only had two weeks of struggle, vulnerability, and a feeling of helplessness, I can imagine what it feels like for someone who deals with the pain and ostracism everyday of his life. Our society is framed around those who we perceive “normal”. Often when engineers build, it is mainly crafted around those who have two feet, two arms, seeing eyes, hearing ears"normal.

After my experience, I suddenly did not know what I wanted to do anymore. I had always wanted to go into the humanities and thus, the subjects I engaged in revolved around my interests. However, the more I kept reliving the memories, the more I gained an interest in the sciences"an area of study that never interested me before. Though my strengths lie in the humanities, I now find fascination for both humanities and sciences. I cannot now decide between becoming a pre medical student and endorsing myself to the liberal arts. Nevertheless, whichever path I decide to choose in the future, I know it will be a choice that will fulfill my ultimate goal: continuing mission 50"creating impact. Something about the corners of my lips curving up towards the sky is contagious, a good kind of epidemic, the one you just want to see over and over again. I want to be someone who is able to give more years to a mother to be with her children; I want to fulfill an athlete’s aspirations to continue his dream. I want to inspire an old woman to remember once more, during her remaining years, what it feels like to walk with sure steps, whether it means working to fund medical processes, or it means that I become a part of the community that actually works to achieve it. Thus, I do not have a set career path, which does make me feel a bit off-key, but I know that even if I choose now, something along the way may change my mind as my knee injury has done because life never goes exactly the way we plan it. I can only say that whatever I do in the next five minutes, or the next ten years, regardless of what it is, I will exert all my effort in realizing their potentials. Nothing we do ever comes to waste. Therefore, I do not categorize myself as indecisive; I’m a juggler who can do somersaults.