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When do you truly realize you’re no longer young? Or rather, you realize you were never as strong as you thought you were.
Two weeks ago I went to play football. I’m not Messi or anything, just some movement since I have a sedentary job. I started playing (football) a few months ago, more or less forced to by a medical condition.
Until then, about 7–8 years had passed since I last played. Anyway, that’s not really the point of the story.
The point of the story is that men are weak when it comes to handling pain.
I went to play football. The game starts. I was first in goal—as on any proper turf field, we rotate goalkeepers—and I was the first one. We play, my time in goal ends, and I go onto the field. I felt good; I was in the mood to play.
Five minutes pass, I sprint, make a pass, and we score. At the same time, I feel a sharp sting in my calf. It felt like I had been kicked. I turn around. The opponent was 3 meters away; there was no way he could have hit me and moved away that fast.
I don’t pay much attention, but the pain persists.
I try to move away from that spot and the pain starts getting worse and worse.
I sit down, move my leg a bit, it feels numb, I get up and go back toward the goal. All this time, thoughts are racing through my head: what happened, where is this pain coming from, why is it so intense, why is it numb, could it be an Achilles tendon injury?
What actually happened?
While all these thoughts were running through my head, I started sweating. I knew the feeling, I knew what was coming. I tried to lower myself as much as possible because soooooon…
Ladies and gentlemen, I fainted. I curled up. I became a 86-kilogram inert pancake next to the goal.
The guys panicked, managed to wake me up and called an ambulance, but I, like a true Romanian—pure-blood “Dac” (joking, that doesn’t exist)—said: I’m okay, I’m fine now.
Also partly out of fear of going to the hospital.
My leg felt like wood. It hurt. I couldn’t move it anymore; there was no chance of playing again.
I stayed quietly like a spectator in a county league match and did what Romanians do best: comment.
After the game ended, I went to the car. I couldn’t drive; luckily I didn’t have to. On the way, the pain was still there. I once again showed true Romanian purity and simplicity and smoked an IQOS, trying to process what had happened. Five minutes didn’t pass and I started sweating again… we know what’s coming.
Ladies and gentlemen, I fainted again. This time it was worse than the first.
This time I couldn’t resist going by ambulance anymore. I partially came to, but I felt very dizzy and generally unwell. I waited calmly, semi-conscious, for the ambulance because I couldn’t really do anything anyway.
What I remember is the dispatcher lady scolding us: “I told you to go to the hospital from the beginning, don’t make me send an ambulance.” And I also remember that where I parked the car was right in front of the office building where I work. I was like: “Nooo, why here? I don’t want to go to work.”
The ambulance arrived, they did an ECG, checked my blood pressure, gave me a round of medication—probably painkillers, I don’t really remember. I slowly started recovering. But since my blood pressure was low, they decided to transport me to the ER.
Even though I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone, I was convinced my low blood pressure was just from fainting. This confidence also comes from my genetics—being a true Romanian, pure-blood Dac.
Joking aside, I was just panicking and, like any person who hates going to the doctor, I was trying to diagnose myself: “it must be from that.”
At the hospital, I started feeling much better. I received IV fluids and painkillers. They ran tests to see what could be causing the low blood pressure.
As the pain decreased, my blood pressure started to recover too. I waited until I felt better. It was very crowded and I was asked how I felt.
Feeling much better, I was moved to a chair so doctors could handle more urgent cases. The results came back: nothing unusual, nothing that could explain the low blood pressure.
A few minutes later, the doctor came to tell me when I could leave, if I could leave. The diagnosis was… a muscle contracture followed by fainting due to severe pain.
The doctor, very kind, said: “We men don’t tolerate pain as well as women, and sometimes we can even faint from it.”
I knew that. I knew we’re not tanks like we think we are, but I didn’t expect to faint from a leg pain—and yes, it’s true, we can’t really compare to women; they have a different level of pain tolerance.
If I fainted twice in one hour from leg pain, I don’t even want to imagine what I’d do if I experienced menstrual pain—not even talking about childbirth. The real tank is actually the woman.
In conclusion, I’m fine. I’m still recovering my leg, still resting.
Once again I realized I’m not as strong as I thought I was and that I should take better care of myself. And above all, I was reminded that women are better at handling pain than men.
