Memento Mori
Before 10:48 A.M. Central European Time on December 26, 2007, I had been but theoretically aware of the thin line that divides normalcy from catastrophe and, ultimately, life from death. Bad things happened, of course, but they happened to others.
That snowy Wednesday morning, two days before I was due to return home from Europe and fifty feet from my van parked in a Belgrade street, I stepped into a narrow water service manhole. It was more a hatch, really, and only partially covered by the steel cap that should have been fully inserted into the opening. The resulting trap was made invisible by a thick layer of freshly fallen snow. In an instant I crossed the Thin Line.
That’s why I have been absent for so long—five weeks!—from my News & Views column. Events that breed a self-focused frame of mind also make the great wide world look less important, and therefore less worthy of the effort of critical scrutiny.
The fall itself was surprisingly painless. At first I was puzzled, rather than concerned, as I tried to sit up and drag my right leg from the shallow hole. I couldn’t. When I lifted the thigh with both arms, however, the foot came out hanging limply downwards, unattached to the leg joint. I could neither move it nor feel it. It was bad, and this time it was me.
The creeping nausea quickly followed. My hands were too trembly for the tiny Siemens phone. Some kind passers-by called 011-94 instead, and tried to make me comfortable by placing a rolled-up coat under my head. The ambulance came quickly, just in time to deliver a comforting i.v. shot as the messed-up joint started sending short, sharp shocks upwards.
It was the first big snow of the year and the traffic was awful. It took them an hour to get me to the Emergency Center but the memory of the trip is blurred. Once there, however, x-rays were quickly taken, clothes removed, intravenous drip inserted, and treatment options presented. Fractura trimall. cruris dex. S82.8— closed triple tibial plafond and foot joint fracture—offered two alternatives: external cast, or operation with internal fixation. The former seemed inherently more attractive at first. I was warned that a nasty multiple fracture could heal badly, however, whereas surgery offered excellent prospects of eventual full recovery. The decision has to be made quickly, without prior detailed Google searches or Net forums. I opted for the scalpel and signed the form.
The operation at 9 that same evening lasted just over an hour. It entailed the insertion of seven screws and a plate to keep the bones in place while healing. I was fully awake throughout—having chosen spinal over total anaesthetic—and the only creepy moment was the noise of the bone drill. The thought of some parts of my skeleton undergoing treatment usually reserved for joists and two-by-twos was also oddly funny. It brought to mind the musings of a cheerfully insane American who maintains that,
In the near future you will discard your body—you will literally throw it in the trash—because you will neither want it nor need it. You will discard your biological body gladly, like you would discard an old pair of shoes today. You will be quite grateful to be rid of it . . . In the process of losing your body, you will achieve a level of freedom and longevity that is unimaginable to us today.
Yeah, whatever; this morbid obsession with physical immortality has been a regular feature of post-Christian flights of fancy for three centuries, if not longer. For now it’s memento mori for me, and I am glad that my surgeons are Aleksandar Lesic and Marko Bumbasirevic, masterful cutters and carvers who head the Microsurgery Unit. They are in the business of patching and mending, rather than discarding.
These gentlemen and their crews have perfected their trade on some thousands of ugly cases in the decade of ex-Yugoslav wars and Serbia’s NATO bombing 10-15 years ago. God, I am grateful that my misfortune befell me in Belgrade, rather than, say, in London, with its terminally dysfunctional National Health Service offering services equally perilous to life and limb of the captive millions of its “clients”—regardless of the blighters’ race, gender, or sexual orientation. Yes, the Belgrade Emergency Center has a building more than a hundred years old that needs new bathrooms and a fresh coat of paint; but when some top-notch Swiss doctors tell you that your kid’s leg has to be amputated, it may well offer your only hope.
Five days that followed the operation were made memorable by the fact that my immediate neighbor on the ward was a respected underworld figure, Ugo Aranitovic, allegedly Mafia boss in the city of Sabac and a character straight out of Pulp Fiction. Intelligent, eloquent and talkative, Ugo is awaiting trial for murder and extortion—and at the same recovering from a nasty leg wound, gained in the line of duty. With two armed policemen in attendance round the clock and a chain securing his good leg to the bed, he had an eager audience for captivating stories of daring, intrigue and death that moved from Amsterdam to Sarajevo, from Rome to Montenegro.
All interesting things come to an end, however, and on New Year's Eve I was released to the care of my in-laws in New Belgrade. Ten days of pampered rest and recuperation followed, with my mother-in-law’s home cooking a welcome change from the institutional grub reminiscent of my army service.
There were two issues, though, that cast a shadow on those lazy days: the thought of my long-suffering wife soldiering on her own during the holiday season, and the knowledge that—come early dawn on January 10—I’d have to become personally mobile in order to attend three previously scheduled conferences in Rome (January 10), Bratislava (January 14), and London (January 17). Doing them all, by plane or by car but always on crutches, with the leg barely healed and in plaster, was insane; but not doing them was not an option.
As of last Friday afternoon I am safely back home, utterly knackered but recovering fast and almost ready to get back to work. Watch this space.
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I'll remember to break my bones in Belgrade, not in London.
Glad you're better.
Here's wishing you a speedy and full recovery! Skilled surgeons and adept physical therapists are really working wonders these days.
Keep well Srdja, and hope the worst is over.
The best wishes,
Petar - Djordje
Welcome back, Mr. Trifkovic. Best of luck in your recovery and thereafter.
Best wishes for your recovery, Dr. Trifkovic.
Dear Dr. Trifkovic,
I have been a regular reader of your columns for years and I've always admired your skillful writing, quick wit and dedication to the triumph of culture, Tradition and Christianity. You are a true
intellectual warrior of the highest caliber, and I hope that one day I'll have the honor of shaking your hand.
Please accept my warmest wishes for your expeditious recovery. God bless you and welcome back!
All the best to you and your family in the coming year,
Brian A. Muza
Glad to have you back and may you have a speedy and relatively painless recovery. For the record, I suffered a bad fall and twisted wrist in the streets of Zurich and received magnificent care from a Swiss doc who went out of his way to communicate in his bad Italian. Sadly, there was no Ugo at the clinic - that's the Balkan touch.
Dr. Trifkovic I’ll add my name to the Chronicles’ well wishers list for your speedy recovery and good health. Good to have you back! On a more cheerful note – Your legs have never been your forte – it is your head that counts. So…. I am also glad that you hold the Serbian surgeons in such a high regard. There are indeed some excellent surgeons in Serbia.
Was wondering where you were, good to have you back.
There are quite a number of Serbian surgeons/physicians working in the British NHS. I imagine that a number of them are held in "high regard" also. For sure those that I know have less good to say about the bloated US system than the NHS (whatever the shortcomings of the latter). Really, Srdja, I expected something better than a Rudy Giuliani style cheap-shot.
Nonetheless, get well soon!
-Jovica
I readily admit that the NHS is my pet hate, and for some good reasons too.
In Sept 1992 my GP sent a letter to the consultant dermatologist at Hammersmith Hospital asking for an appointment because of a suspicious mole on my back. It took them TWO MONTHS to find a slot. As soon as I bared my back -- it was late November by that time -- the consultant sent me straight to the operating theatre. Had it been cancerous I would have been dead... and once it was all over, it took them four days to give me the negative score.
BTW, during the operation the surgeon was giving a half-dozen students some "witty" running commentary (it's a teaching hospital) a la "Oooo, it's a nasty looking little fellow we've got here!" (i.e. my mole) and "We'll make this incision a tad deeper, lest some melanocytes are left below, and we'll keep our little fingers crossed!" (Our? OUR?)
My good friend, the late Sir Alfred Sherman, lost his wife that same autumn due to an NHS specialist's misdiagnosis of her bone cancer ("rheumatism"!).
My British friends can tell you dozens of simiral stories, and my wife can tell you of attempted sexual harrassment by her GP of Subcontinental origin.
In any event, I was not making any comparison between the NHS and the admittedly messy, overpriced, and utterly commercialized system in the U.S.
My heartiest wishes for your complete recovery. I'm glad to see, judging by the way you efficiently deflated Jovica's platitudinous pontificating, that your fighting spirit is intact. I look forward to reading more of your articles; I keep hoping that your sharp slaps across the face of the comatose Western world will bring it to its Christian senses.
Mr. Trifkovic-
Sorry about your leg, but at least it gave us this excellent story. Thanks.
My dear Maureen,
"Jovica’s platitudinous pontificating". Eh? For that little aside? Crikey, one can only wonder at the astounding (and no doubt alliterative) invective that might result from, say, a viewing of Michael Moore's "Sicko". Really, my dear, best to keep your powder dry for when you need it most.
Re: The NHS. Over the last thirty or so years, the only 'old school' EU countries that spent less on health than the UK [1] were Portugal and Greece. These were considered the poor relations of the old EU and not the countries that Albion generally chooses to compare herself with. What is surprising about the NHS is how well it did compared to its much better provided for EU 'cousins', until the last decade or so when the spiralling costs of high-tech medicine resulted in small, but significant, differences in across-the-board mortality figures.
Re: "perfected their trade". Indeed, there's nothing like a bit of bombing and mayhem to sharpen the scalpel. Come to think of it, hospitals in Belfast were renown for having best casualty departments in the UK. Perhaps Naomh Pádraig should join Apostle Luke, Saints Cosmas and Damian and Saint Panteleimon in the list of "Patron Saints of Medicine" since so much for medical training has been effected in his name.
Pozdrav iz Leicester,
-Jovica
[1] Total health spend as a fraction of GDP.
Jovica: this is getting so OT, but I just can't let you get away with the claim that what we are witnessing in GB is "the spiralling costs of high-tech medicine" resulting in "small, but significant, differences in across-the-board mortality figures". But what about HMG, which -- far from offering solutions -- is itself the biggest problem?
NHS founder Aneurin Bevan told the nation, "When a bedpan is dropped on a hospital floor, its noise should resound in the Palace of Westminster." This implied political license to meddle, with its bias in favor of bureaucracy and obsession with waiting lists and targets, is bringing the late Mr. Bevan's creation to its knees as we speak.
The only way to save the NHS is to get it out of the TLC of politicians (just like the Bank of England). NHS should be run by clinicians for patients: no more HMG "targets", please, and enough Titanic-deckchair-like perpetual "reform". A Downing Street-safe NHS budget managed by a board of governors (dominated by doctors) is the only solution for a system that is on its last legs after six decades.
Srdja, I wasn't trying to get away with anything - honest, guv. HMG are indeed the biggest menace to the NHS -- I'm totally agreed with you on that. What's surprising - even now - is how much good doctors (dodgy, groping ones aside) manage to do despite the morass of "empowered" managers gleefully chasing the latest daft target.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery. In the meantime, besides recalling "Love sweetens pain" from "The Practice of the Presence of God", you can read, or re-read, "How St. Francis taught Brother Leo that perfect joy is only in the Cross". It expresses the same idea, but much more charmingly.
Welcome back, Dr. T., and Godspeed on your recovery.
JM, I must thank you. I've been porting a St. Joseph medal since I began my first job as an expatriate three weeks ago, and you've inspired me to wear St. Patrick tomorrow.
Best wishes for speedy recovery. I was really missing in last 5 weeks definitely most valuable views on www.
Best wishes on your recovery good Dr. Tirfkovic. I'm glad to see you are back. I missed your keen insight on the situation in Pakistan which erupted while you were away.
Belgrade: good surgery; London: good roadwork; New York: good tort law.
"London: good roadwork." As they say in Private Eye: 'Shurely, shome mishtake?'.
-Jovica