Click here to purchase OFF CENTRE CIRCLE by Ger McCarthy
The following is an extract from the book entitled 'Off Centre Circle' written by Ger. McCarthy about a lifetime spent toiling in the amateur soccer leagues of Ireland.
Chapter 14
Dislocation From Reality
It’s roughly three am according to the cracked face of the clock hanging on the wall as I wearily struggle to open my heavy eyes. I have to re-adjust for a split-second before realising that there is an oxygen mask covering my mouth. I motion my right hand to remove the mask only to find my arm strapped tightly over my right shoulder and across my chest keeping my elbow at a forty-five degree angle.
The sharpness of the pain through my arm startles me and I scramble my left hand to remove the mask and make sense of my surroundings. There are nurses and doctors squeezing past one another in every direction in an overcrowded hallway. An intercom crackles overhead asking Doctor Somebody-or-Other to report to the Accident and Emergency ward as soon as possible. The paint on the walls are peeling and my bed is uncomfortable.
The slightest movement causes the wheels underneath my gurney to shake ever so slightly and I fear any sudden movements will send me rolling down the hallway. Taking in this utterly chaotic scene for a few moments is a bit disconcerting until it finally dawns on me that I must still be in the Accident and Emergency area of Cork University hospital.
A loud voice from across the crowded hall grabs my attention:
- “Jaysus but you were in some pain there boy!”
- “Sorry?”
- “When they wheeled you in earlier on there. Christ you were kicking and screaming up an awful fuss.”
- “Sorry, but how do you mean?”
- “Ah your shoulder boy. Dirty bastard of a thing. Horrible injury to have. Did it myself a few years back. Never the same after it.”
- “I did my shoulder? Oh feck so that’s what the pain is.”
- “Pain? Jaysus you sounded like you had been shot. Gave the doctors and nurses awful grief altogether. Took three of them to hold you down in the end…”
- “WHAT?”
An angelic nurse, with a beautiful smiling face, approaches my gurney and enquires as to the well being of Mr McCarthy and what state his shoulder is now in. I mumble some sort of an answer and she asks if I would like anything for the pain. I bravely decline but ask how long I have been here and what exactly is wrong with my arm. The nurse proceeds to outline how I managed to completely separate my right shoulder from its socket and had to be brought to Cork University Hospital via ambulance to have it re-attached.
A doctor will be along as soon as the chaos in the Accident and Emergency ward settles down. It is the regular crazy Friday night Saturday morning shift after all. All this information is too much to take in and the nurse advises me to lie still and try and get some rest while she goes off to find my wife. She gently places the oxygen mask around my nose and mouth. Hours of screaming and constant pain have taken their toll and I slowly begin to drift off once again.
The last person I think of before the blackness descends is Tony Cascarino. Tony – fecking - Cascarino? Christ, I must be on some heavy amount of drugs…
Off Centre Circle is available to buy on Amazon for 12.99
Click here to purchase OFF CENTRE CIRCLE by Ger McCarthy
