Journal no. 3

so i went to Scarborough with boss and his friends. armed with only a theory on surfing, i thought it would be okay.

this is the surf shop where we hired the boards from.
boards for sale.
the fat blue one is mine. i read that beginners start with big fat ones. unfortunately it was too heavy for me.
anyway, i have no pictures of the beach, but we went to the spot where a surf school held lessons for the kids. the waves were no existent at first. i tried to put what i read online into practice, but my arms could not paddle, it was hard to get on the board and i didn't know how to position myself. much less "pop-up". apparently that is pure arm power since my legs are not on board, it being too short?
boss and his friends left me to figure it out on my own, checking on me periodically.
20 minutes in, the waves started being erratic and i got caught the horrible washing machine of crashing waves like 6 times. one of those times, the board hit me on the jaw. it hurt, but i felt okay so i continued to stay on the water. after being bashed around, i decided to watch the waves and learn to avoid the danger zone. lol.
after another 20 minutes where i was pleasantly floating like a beached seal on the board, i felt my face and was surprised that there seemed to be a v-shaped dent on my jawline. and my fingers came away a bit red. the wound was bleeding...
huh. but it didn't hurt so i didn't really bother.
it was after another 5 minutes that the guys decided to rest. we went on shore (i was rolled around again while doing that) and i showed them my injury. they seemed quite non-plussed, and i went with one of them to the life guards.
the life guards were quite alarmist - they looked at it and said it was deep and probably needed 2 stitches. and they did some basic cleaning and stuck a plaster on it.
then boss took me to a nearby clinic that the life guards mentioned, but being Saturday, there was no one who wanted to handle my case.
then he dropped me off in the city and i went to Royal Perth Hospital.
i was told to report to the emergency section.
first, the triage nurse does a basic assessment of your injury. and asks for your name and phone number. then gives you some print-outs for you to bring to the other side.
there was no queue number system for the triage, so people could jump queue, but luckily it was only about 4 people when i was there.
i followed the orange lines to the other side where i gave more information to the receptionist and waited for them to call me.
while i waited, this lady came in with a palm-sized fish hook that went through her palm and she was in a lot of pain. she and her partner were quite bogan (unsophisticated). she got called in first
then a rather cute young guy in scrubs called me in. it was Dr Alex.
beside me was the fish hook lady, an old guy with bandaged little finger, and drunk and hungry injured guy.
Alex did some checks to see if my brain got damaged by the impact, making me stare at his nose and pull his fingers. and his senior told him to glue the cut instead of stitching it.
the doctors and nurses were not rushing around. it must be tiring and stressful, i think the more experienced ones use black humor to get through the day.
the fish-hook lady was afraid of injections. they put her on a bed and gave her a pain-killer, and they brought out pliers for cutting the hook.
i waited there, as the fish-hook lady waited, while the staff seemed to slowly take their time.
when i got a bed for Alex to clean and glue the wound, the fish-hook was finally getting the hook cut and removed.
Alex said the cut was deeper than he thought, so he put plenty of glue.
and he also gave me a tetanus shot.
i went out of the hospital with dressing over the 2 strips of tape. when i was taking my shower, i realised my front neck muscles hurt. must be from the impact of the board.
the next day, the arm with the tetanus hurt like crazy (left arm). my jaw was okay though. i had some blue-black bruises on my legs and my stomach muscles hurt.
the following day, my left arm is still practically useless.

one of the guys saw my bandage and commented that he got hit on the face by his board too. but his was worse because somehow it made his tooth go through his face. yikes.
i'm really lucky the board didn't hit in worse ways.
still keen to try it again though, but with actual instructors. or just do body-boarding.