Riding a wheel chair at the hospital

Photo: All wrapped up on Borneo, Malaysia - 19/12/10

Since I did not make it to the top of Mount Kinabalu, and in meanwhile I returned to Kota Kinabalu from a trip to Kuching, in Sarawak, I thought I'll give it another go, and to be more sure of reaching the top, I thought to climb to mountain in one day up, to the top, and down again. Because during the night there is a bigger chance of rainfall, and I didn't want to catch the same unluckiness as the previous time...
Earlier I was planning to go to Sandakan, as my flight to Kuala Lumpur would be leaving from Sandakan about 5 days later. Mount Kinabalu is on the way to Sandakan anyway.

So I took the bus, and after about 30 minutes on the bus I realized that I forgot my charger for the photo camera batteries! What could I do? Get off and go back? But from the bus station it is another 30 minutes and two buses to get back to the hostel....I could perhaps go to the mountain and return to the hostel afterwards or the next day. Could I ask them to send to charger perhaps?
I decided to continue to the mountain and see if it is possible to climb the next day anyway. In meantime I send a text message to Jennifer and Will who I met on the way and who I joined the visit to Kuching, asking for the phone number of the hostel so I could give a ring for them to check on the charger and take it from the room before someone would steal it.
I found out that Jennifer and Will, who where planning on flying to the Philippines, were not allowed to board their plane because it´s required to have a return flight to visit the Philippines...and they were sooo looking forward to go!

In meanwhile I reached to mountain, and I walked up the stairs to the head quarter. There I met a few Australian girls again who I met earlier, about 1 week ago, in Kota Kinabalu when I was having dinner and a drink with Alex from England, my room-mate in the hostel. He was there to perform research on the rocks of mount Kinabalu for his graduation.
I walked into the office where to hire the mandatory guide and I told them I wanted to climb in one day. But they came up with a paper with rules and restrictions and you can only climb to the top if you reach the 3000+ meters at 10.00am! While the office only opens at 7.00am. It is an 6km hike. At my previous climb we left at about 8.30 and reached the 3000+ at 2.00pm, so that was a no-go for sure! Impossible!
This company is trying to make huge many out of everything, they are all over Sabah charging you money even to enter Islands...They are one of those monopoly game winners.
By the way, there are runs held to the top of the mountain, and the fastest for guys is to reach the top running in 2 hours and some minutes, and for ladies in more than 3 hours! And then this ´normal´ hike should make you reach in 3 hours?

Anyway, disappointed I walked away back to the main road to catch a bus back to Kota Kinabalu to say hello again to Jennifer and Will and to pick up my charger.
At the last steps of the stairs I put my foot wrong, get stuck at the previous stair making a funny move with my left leg causing my knee cap to dislocate. And because it was dislocated I could not stand on my leg while I was out of balance, so I fell forwards down the concrete stairs with my knee cap next to my leg. Already during the fall I felt it was dislocated so in a reflex, I managed to turn my body right wards so not to fall on my left knee making it even worse. Making me fall on my right knee instead...I was laying upside down on the stairs - in between some people who were sitting on the stairs - shouting 'my knee my knee my knee!' in case they would do something, help me up or anything.
I had this dislocation a few times before with my right knee during sports so I knew what to do and I asked the guy next to me to pull my leg straight but because of the stairs this didn't really work and he didn't really try so I had to pull my leg with my arms straight myself so that my knee cap would go back to it's original location.
I lay there for a few minutes not to force my knee, but I had to get to the other side of the road to catch the bus. From experience I knew that I could stand on it, and that soon the knee would be swollen because of fluids.
Reaching the other side of the road, I lay there with my stretched leg on top of my bag waiting for the bus for about an hour, caught the bus back to Kota Kinabalu, grabbed a taxi back to the hostel and greeted my friends!

Ok all fine, I thought. It just needs to rest, get rid of the fluid and all over in about 1 week, as happened the previous times. But the next day when I woke up my leg felt much worse. The knee was swollen big time and when I would stand on the leg it felt like something was seriously wrong inside, like the bones were not at the right place or so. It was painful as well. So I decided to go to the hospital.

At the hospital I spoke to a doctor who asked me a few questions and let me explain what happened, he pressed my knee gently and advised me to move on to a different doctor in a different department. He had a few more questions and decided an x-ray photo to be taken in a different department again by a different doctor.
15 minutes later the photo was in the hands of the previous doctor who could inform me that nothing was broken and that everything was at it's right location. No issues whatsoever.
He took me to a different room to take out all the fluid from my knee, simply by stabbing my knee with a jab, a big one, and pull out the fluid. Actually 4 times, so much fluid/blood was in my knee. He managed to take out 190ml of fluid, all from my knee.
After that they put a stretchy sleeve around my leg, like the tight sleeve of a jumper. Then some bandage. Then - at the bottom only - as I had to fly in a few days - the hard stuff like you get around your arm when your bones are broken. Then on top of that some more bandage rolled around my leg.

And I could walk again!

Well...'walk' as I could not bend my knee due to the splint of plaster and excessive use of bandage all around. At least I was a little mobile again. But I hope Malaysia airlines allows me to board the airplane to KL because with this leg I think - with my leg unable to bend - I won't fit in between two seats...

I must say the service in the hospital was excellent! I had a nurse assigned to me at all times who took me everywhere. Straight away when I arrived at the hospital someone was there to take care of me. I did not have to wait anywhere for a long time. From one doctor to the next and to the next. X-ray photos taken, back to the same doctor. He wrote a medical report straight away. The whole process passed so fluently. Well done to them!

And now, let's rest a little more on the bunk-bed in Borneo Beach House, reading my beautiful book: 'Map of the Invisible world' written by Malaysias Tash Aw about the starting of the revolution in Indonesia.