During the layout and proofreading work of this 2nd updated edition, I got again injured during soccer, this time more heavily. On a hot and humid Sunday late afternoon end of July, I already had saved several balls with convincing reactions, and ten minutes before the end of that game, leading 3-1, a long pass is launched into my 16-m box, I rush out, dive to the ground, reach out to the right with my arms and hit the ball away with my fists. No problem, anyway there was no forward from the other team. But shortly after, something hard hits me from left under my eye, I think my head is exploding.
I am strongly bleeding out of my nose, for minutes, I can not stand the pain. The artificial grass ground develops a small pond of blood. I realize that I can not open my left eye any more, it is strongly swollen. I now can tell, somebody had kicked me with his foot at my head, right under the left eye, seconds after the ball already was unreachable for him.
Finally, after minutes, I can get up, tell my friends (in Chinese) that I have to be brought to the hospital right now.
At this time, I realize that – whatever may have happened to me as I can not open my left eye – my brain still seems to work. I can switch from Chinese to English and back, I can arrange my bike to be taken care of by my friends, and to which hospital I want to be brought, Shekou People’s Hospital. I even am able to ask the other team in Chinese “who did this?”, after I look at him with one eye, I tell him to accompany me to the hospital and pay any expense there for me. And I do not have any headache, while everything in my face and my mouth is painful.
We drive to the hospital, my friends start the registration for me, the opponent pays, I ask for ice for my face and for some warm cover as I am shivering because of my sweaty clothes in the chilly air-conditioned hospital. The doctor quickly looks at me, talks to me and my friends and orders a computer tomography while I am asking for x-ray. No, a CT will be made! My opponent pays the fee. In the meantime, ten or twelve of my friends, the majority of the team, is with me, all of them actively discussing the case, asking me how I feel, checking my eye and brain reaction, helping me not to freeze.
It is Sunday evening, there is no rush, the CT cabinet is empty, and it is quickly done. Soon after, we come back to the doctor with the CT photos developed, he diagnoses no blood in the brain, but the cheak bone left under the left eye to be partially broken, but not displaced. No operation is recommended, just chilling the swelling and to let it recover over time. He tells me to check my eye function as soon as I can open it again, and in case I can not focus but have two pictures I need to come back.
My bike (which was kept in the hospital lobby) is put into the back of one of the big cars some of my friends are driving, I get in front and am brought to my home. There I continue cooling my face. It will take until Tuesday that I can open my left eye again, and day by day the swelling is reduced, but I can not bite (because my teeth are somehow misplaced due to internal pressure).
So what and how can I eat in the next days? I am phoning with SunLi. We decide her mother will cook some congee (a popular porridge made from cooked rice), she will bring it to me in the morning. Fang ShiFu, with whom we phone as well, will bring congee for lunch which his wife will have cooked, and again in the evening. So it went for a few more days.
Instead of just congee only, during Monday I get plenty amounts of banana, juice, green tea, apples (which I rub to apple smash using HaoKang’s apple grater, he has to bite himself for a few days), ice to replenish for the cooling, and ice cream because I want to chill my mouth from inside as well (and add some tasy nourishment to compensate for the neutral congee). By Tuesday evening, because not only family SunLi and family Fang are busily buying stuff for me, but also soccer friends are passing by, everybody brings fruit and juice, more ice and icecream, my refrigerator and my freezer are overloaded and I should open a fruit and tea shop on the street.
A colleague brings a beef stew on Wednesday morning and his selection of pharmaceuticals which he believes are to be used now – I have to actively stop this supply of food and additives! During the days, instead of calmly recovering, I am phoning, answering sms in English and Chinese, and have to actively prevent dozens of people to pass by and bring their moral support and more fruit!
I am overwhelmed about these waves of friendship, support, help. Slowly, the swelling is reduced but replaced by increasingly intensive blue colour all over the left part of my face. All my colleagues and friends are exchanging about the most recent status of recovery. And sure, Fang ShiFu offers more than once to take another examination in the central ShenZhen hospital, he had already talked with his friend, the electrician, and prepared everything necessary so far, we could leave right now …
