After Getting POP’ed…
Getting POP [Plaster of Paris]
bandage is the most common thing that we get as part of an orthopedic doctor’s
advice. This blog tries to throw light
on how society interactions changes with the patient, what changes that the
patient experiences in his life depends up on which part of his body has been
bandied with POP, etc., once the bandage
is in place.
In my case, the wrist bone of my
right hand got fractured recently and as part of my doctor’s advice, I got
POPed. Now, I cannot move my wrist;
neither use my palm. I am a right-hand person. Now, you can understand what
does this mean to me. I cannot drive my 2-wheeler. I cannot put my food in to
my mouth lifting it from the plate laid on the table. On top of all this,
sleeping with a POP band is also tough. The first thing that you sense after
getting POPed is the presence of a strange weighing object in white color that
surrounds your target bone-break body part; not allowing you to neither bend nor
fold except for keeping it straight; with minimal movement.
Here, I would like to share all
those new experiences that I came across after getting POPed in my case.
First things first!
Public
Sympathy: Here, I am
not talking about the people whom you know but all those strangers who give those
empathic and sympathetic glances at you the moment they see your POP. Through
those looks, you come to know that there are still a few people on this planet
who care about humanity! For example: the otherwise HOT haughty aunty who never
cares to throw even a glance at you whispers in your ear and asks about your
accident that also at such a closed place [in lift] that you never ever had
imagined; while driving, the otherwise ‘street fighter’ gives you way, of
course sympathetically; the public transport driver let you overtake him by
deliberately taking his foot from the accelerator and going slow, etc.
New Contacts: You get in to a lift and a few people
are already there whom you have never met in your life, so far! Now, suddenly
from one corner of the lift, you hear a voice asking you about how that
accident happened! With this question, the whole bunch inside the lift becomes
curious and they are all ears now at least for next few seconds to listen to
your story. Although they are in to so many urgent things in their minds, still
they don’t mind to focus on your story for a few seconds! Again, this tells you
two things: one, about the basic psychological characteristic of humans –
curiosity – second, no matter how aged and busy people become, yet, they are
interested in stories!
Center
of Discussion: The
moment your POP stuff reaches your friends, colleagues, relatives, neighbors,
etc., you become their subject of discussion for at least an hour or more
[depending up on their free time!]. However, here, they don’t limit themselves
just by focusing on our POP topic; it is like an ‘everything under the SUN’
discussion about you. Since they know more about you, the span of the time
period includes from your first day on this planet to your present day or it
may extend to your future years also. No matter whatever they discuss, it is
all about slicing and dicing of every event that happened in your life; in most
of the instances, the discussion tilts towards more negatively than positively.
Work Assignments: Be it office or home, normally, you
are supposed to do lot many tasks assigned to you. During normal times, it is a
common thing that based on the urgency, either office boss or home boss never
think twice to heap you with tons of otherwise unimportant tasks. Now, when
they come to know that you are down with a bone break and got POPed, the
frequency of hitting you with tasks slows down. During some times, people
volunteer to do a few tasks [that were already assigned to you!] by themselves
without your assistance. That’s really great! I know that again sympathy factor
is playing here but yet it is OK to take an occasional rest on a paid working
day. Right?
In other words, the overall hot
environment that you have been surrounded so far gets cooled up to certain
extent once people see you POPed. No
matter how that bone break hurts you internally, at least the outside cooling
effect enlivens the dying spirit once again in your life to live a few years
more [or until the next bone break!].
Happy POPing!
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