The wheeled – chest of shelves were listing (1) to one side when its two white-walled roller wheels on one side of it, came undone from their slotted (2) position. Its shelves were fully laden with all sorts of things that one would commonly find in a kitchen.
At that juncture, we (my wife Jeannie, and I) had two options. one was that we emptied all the shelves from their ladened things. This would be quite a feat, though not impossible to do. Clearing each one of the five shelves was going to take a bit of time as there were multiple (countless, almost) number of things to remove from them. Emptying the shelves would help lighten the whole chest of shelves, which makes lifting it on the side where the wheels came off, easier, so, that I could re-insert the wheels back in both the corners of the shelves.
Or (which is the second option), we leave all the things on the shelves, I lift the side where the wheels came off, high enough for Jeannie to insert the detached wheels back, into their corner slots; under the shelves. Easier mah! (Malaysian slang). Otherwise leceh (3) to remove the things from the shelves; then have to rearrange them back afterwards.
Now the story begins:
We (meaning, I) chose the second option. I tried lifting the shelves but could not lift them high enough. So, I got down on bended knees and lifted the shelves. i slipped very slightly, causing my left knee to graze the edges of the floor tile or the groove between the joining of the floor tiles.
The scab from the healed wound (5), came off effortlessly, re-opening the wound. I am not going to use the phrase “to be honest”.😁 I’ll just start with: All this while, I thought that the wound had healed completely. There was a bit of pain, at irregular intervals; which came back with the re-opened wound.
I did not think much of the wound. We got the wheels fixed back to the shelves. Then, I applied some of the medicated cream that I got from the doctor when I saw her about the wound the first time. I thought that was good enough.
I continued to apply the medicated cream over the next couple of days. The scab started forming again, indicating that the wound was healing. However, it seemed to easily come off, with a little bit of serous fluid (4) oozing out from the wound at times.
We decided to visit the doctor again. After dinner, on our way home, we (Jeannie, Laura and I) “swung by” to the clinic. Inspecting the wound, the doctor said there was no infection. She explained that the dried and not so dry scab indicates that the wound heals pretty fast. However, the skin may take longer than normal to grow back due to my age. She went on to say that eating fruits and vegetables and the right food intake would help enhance the healing process faster, This is something new I learnt. She prescribed another tube of ointment to apply on the wound.
“Eating fruits, vegetables and the right food intake” is a constant reminder for us, if we want to stay healthy. In our everyday business, we most often don’t pay much attention to this. We eat to satisfy our hunger and drink to quench our thirst. We will hear this good advice, say “yes, we are going to do something about it”, and then it gets lost in all the things that we consider more important. It is good that we get everyday reminders like this and work towards it. Even improving our food intake by 1% is still 1% better. Let’s strive for more.
NOTES:
1. “Listing” is a nautical term to describe when a vessel (boat / ship) takes on water and tilts to one side. A ship can list either to port (left) or starboard (right).
2. “Slotted” : having a groove or channel into which something fits.
3. “Leceh” means troublesome.
4. What is clear liquid from a wound called?
If the drainage is thin and clear, it’s serum, also known as serous fluid. This is typical when the wound is healing, but the inflammation around the injury is still high. A small amount of serous drainage is normal. Excessive serous fluid could be a sign of too much unhealthy bacteria on the surface of the wound. http://www.healthline.com
5.