Category: Personal

It was the first new year I decided to stay in Norway rather than traveling to somewhere warm. Such a right decision I made. Happy 1.1.11! Godt nytt år!

I just got my shoulder relocated after two hours of suffer and torture. I was just waving hand for this legendary dude at Stanford’s Coffee House (aka coho) and this simple move completely popped out my left arm! So weird.

It could occur in three different ways and happened to be a posterior type (backward?) which is one of the rarest and according to the doctors the worst type of shoulder dislocation! Now it has been two weeks that Morphy rules my life and honestly I am not used to that.

Since I was a child this left arm knew how to place itself back in (may be forward dislocation) till once that it was dislocated (perhaps backwards) during a seizure and since then relocation was never easy. I’ve had to go to a hospital each of a few times it happened ever since.

Back to the campus scene, as I was shouting out loud after waving hand, students were laughing at me like I am joking. As they realized something wrong is seriously going on, many disappeared. The rest stepped back and looked at me. I dunno why almost no one dared to approach when I asked them to make a phone call. Could involvement bring responsibility? The ambulance came finally. They wanted to take me to a close hospital, but they missed it by one letter and took me to a closed one! Then we have to drive back all the way to the main hospital of the Silicon Valley which was open but super expensive. On the way a nurse was holding my arm in a safe position and upon her request I was dropping numbers like 0, 1, 3 to inform her about my pain level out of ten. A loud 9 on each speed bump of course. She asked why not 10? I said you know I’m humble.

In the hospital they asked me if I let them inject different random stuff into my veins and I asked them not to do it please. They injected them all. I don’t know why they asked. They gave me a shot to relax my muscles plus some general pain-killers and some local pain-relievers too. I don’t remember but I think they injected swine flu vaccine too, since they told me something about it and I didn’t get how it could help relocating a shoulder. If that’s the case, I guess I know what caused my fever and the consequent sickness. I think my blood pressure was taken hundred times and my fingerprint a couple more. And yeah, eventually after I answered a series of basic health questions for the fifteenth time, the doctor decided to pop it back in. They tried three times and it worked the last time. I said I love him. He said he is straight!

I could have fixed it on my own, to avoid a hell of severe pain and an expensive bill. But, even if successful, it would have had its own risks. I know I should be thankful for the nurses, doctors, etc.

p.s. Three months later I settled the case by paying 25% of the bill. It was according to the hospital rule that gives you 75% discount of you don’t have an American valid insurance. The Norwegian insurance system refunded me that 25%. Soon, there will be a surgery here in Norway to fix the problem forever and that will also be completely free!

Kharanoo, the best pet ever, was found once lonely passing an overcrowded street in Tehran.

It was a 7th of July, right before my departure to Norway, when I received a phone call: “Nima! I found a lovely creature! You have no idea how cute!” My sister excitedly said: “We don’t know how to feed it. What does a hedgehog eat?”. She was really worried and I should have taken care of the emergency situation: “- How on earth should I know what hedgehogs eat?!”. I answered wisely and hanged up!

At night we had already started to call societies of animal protection in the capital and some related NGOs but no useful information. I even called an NGO that we had tried recently when Mishoolak, a found kitten, died due to drinking fat cow milk according to their advice. The lady over the phone said: “- Sorry, We know nothing about hedgehogs. We’re cat professionals!”.

Some others were more informative: “- You might find a local zoo!”. A zoo? Good idea. The closest one was Darabad museum of Iranian natural history, full of snakes. We discussed and finally suspected that if they can’t manage to find room for Kharanoo, their disgusting reptiles will have a dinner party over Kharanoo. Never!

Thankful of everyone’s hospitality, he survived. Kharanoo made it finally, being treated to dead insects, cat food, and water. He became a part of the family, sleeping in daylight and clattering at nights. He was a hunter, or at least was pretending to be harmful to cockroaches. He was really polite but too shy. Whenever we entered the room, by turning on lights on he would run away and hide himself for hours! But despite all the cultural differences, he was happy and we were happy with his happiness.

Kharanoo was really fast in response to auditory stimuli. You could make him dance with any rhythm, just if simplified to a bunch of click sounds:

One week before I left Iran, We made a farewell trip with my parents and my sister. To the green lands in the north of the Alborz mountains. We had concluded that Kharanoo is an Erinaceus Concolor (known as “European hedgehog” in Iran). Google had informed us that they are widely spread in the southern woods of the Caspian sea, where we were heading to. We took Kharanoo with us to set him free.

We loved each other but he had to continue his natural life with creatures of his own type. We offered him food, shelter and security but no nature, friends or relationship. Though he was not very social, we knew he will take care of the rest if we leave him were he belongs.

Honestly, I was mostly thinking of myself. He was not the only migrant in the scene. Becoming dramatically nostalgic I was more in love with my homeland than ever before and really didn’t want to leave it to elsewhere. Eventually under the moonlight, He became a symbol of immigration for me. Each time I missed home after that night Kharanoo was present in the back of my mind!

Let’s get back to Kharanoo. We went deep in to the forests and set him free. He left us to find friends and start a new life…

Every thing was fine! At least for us. But sadly, this was not the end of the story.

Last week I was back home again, forgetting all about symbolic aspects of Kharanoo: migration. I was flipping pages of a reference book, “Mamals of Iran”, something laying there that I had missed out. And suddenly the bitter truth revealed itself…

Kharanoo was not an Erinaceus Concolor. He was a Paraechinus Hypomelas (known as Brandt’s hedgehog). The crazy thing is that the geographic range of those two look-alikes in the map was just partitioned with no intersection! Two completely opposite climates. One species lives exactly where the other does not, as if they have divided the country to their territories! Those who have been to Iran know how different climates these two regions have…

We had confidently taken the poor thing from the dry ecosyatem he belonged to, leaving him in the foggy forests of the north.

Kharanoo, you have my guilt… and my love, forever!

This is a real story about my dilemmatic closed chain, the last night:

1. My wallet was in the office and the door was locked.
2. The office key was attached to my car key.
3. The car key was in the gas station for the service.
4. The person in charge would demand some money to give the key back.
5. I had money/cards but it was was in the wallet! (go back to 1)

I needed to cut this loop to get the car back and drive home, accordingly by:

1. Breaking the office door. (Trouble)
2. Asking the man to disattach my office key, going back and force… (Time consuming)
3. Stealing the keys! (Crime)
4. Asking the mechanic to give me the car back trusting that he will get the money. (Embarrassing)
5. Borrow that money from a random dude for several minutes. (Weird)

What do you think I did and what would you do?