Escapade Of The Knee

In Myanmar came a somewhat bad day for member of Pro Equa, Otto Sharples. The day would be glorious, wake up; go on a balloon ride; and ride electric scooters from temple to temple, it would be awesome for the whole family. The whole family, but one

I started off the day hurling off the side of a balloon onto Bagan. Luckily, the mucus only extracted from my body when we were fairly close to the ground, and not onto the town where all the locals live. Next, were the devilish electronic pieces of metal AKA ebikes. We all cruised up to old Bagan to see all the temples. Wescott dropped and crashed his bike a couple of times, but other than that, we were safely cruising through the ancient city, until it happened. While heading over back to our hotel my bike had found itself in deep sand. My bike span out of control, and down went Otto. I landed on the sand ground, along with my bike. My foot wound up wedged under the bike, and my face planted in the sand. My family quickly lifted the bike up and helped me up. At the time I had no recognition that any serious damage had been done to my leg, so I hopped right back on my bike and twisted the accelerator and continued riding.

Mom and dad stopped ahead to take pictures, so I simply rolled up my pant leg to see what was going on with my knee, and that was when I knew something was wrong. I yelled over to my mom and dad to come over, but they rejected and continued to snap away. I yelled again, and finally mom came over to see what was happening. I showed her my leg and she called over my dad as well. My knee had swollen to the size of a grapefruit. Here is a photo of my horrendous knee, viewer discretion is advised.

Well there you have it, my mystical day ended with me watching sunset on the top of a temple thanks to Yve and Dad for practically carrying me up there.

We were on our way to Chaing Mai as I was wheeled through the airport by some guy who was probably thinking: this guy is probably faking. I mean just a minute ago he was riding on one of their pieces of luggage. 

When we made it to Chaing Mai, I was supplied with some crutches. We consulted with PopPop on what our next battle phase would be, and he recommended that we go to the hospital. Dad, Jones and I went to a hospital that was recommended for people who don’t want to have the more adventurous international hospital experience.  I had an X-Ray done, and luckily no bones were broken. I got an MRI done as well that did have some results. There is a very small tear in my ACL, and the doctor said it would be back to normal in about a month. The doctor aspirated my knee as Jones shot out questions and comments to my dad as he watched.

I am currently sitting in Yangshuo, China (three weeks later) and my knee isn’t horrendous any more. I am able to swim, walk a limited distance without crutches, but sadly, I cannot rock climb.

 P.S. PARENTS NOTE:  The doctors visit, x-ray, MRI, aspiration and crutches totaled $400 including all hospital expenses.  Perhaps we should all retire to Chiang Mai