Hey everyone - guess what?? I'm not the ONLY one breaking bones here in this madhouse!! This little effort is mainly for family members, cricket enthusiasts, ghouls who like peering at broken stuff and fools who believe exercise and sporty things can actually be good for you..
C springs into action, offering to drive me to Innaloo ( better than upper swan!) to fetch the muppet and her car and in mere moments we've hid the sugar, grabbed a towel to splint the break and we're enthusiastically careering around corners on our way to pick up the broken one.
Boring bits clipped, we're later driving into St J o' G Hospital to the afterhours clinic .. The doctor sends her off for an Xray after poking Anita's arm and being soundly shouted at for his efforts, the nice girl shot her full or Xrays and moments later out popped the film with the evidence clearly visible to all - her ulna was busted up. The doctor eyeballs the xray from the other side of the room then starts ruminating for a bit, then he proceeds to tell us a golf story. I asked him what was going through his head (the golf story was good, but it was going on a little too long and I didn't really see it tying in with A's predicament) so he tells me that he's a bit confounded by the break and would rather a surgeon eyeball the Xray. Since we've no hospital insurance, we back slowly from the doctor and when he turns away to fondle his putter we make a run for it and head to QEII hospital.
A is having a hell of a time in the falcon with every bump on the road so I'm doing my damndest to keep all four wheels on the ground, but we get there soon enough and eventually she finds herself being attended by a nice nurse called Anita and two happy looking young men who profess to be doctors. One chews gum the whole time and the other just looks a bit too pleased with himself. Neither seem to own a white gown, but Anita #2 seems to have a handle on things so I feel reasonably comfortable that they're not going to lose MY Anita or lop off her leg for fun. I decided to head home at this point to a) turn off the heater that I forgot to turn off when I left the house (it was drying paint) - and b) get a more comfy Ford for A to ride in.
I returned at around 10:30 when they'd finished their umm-ing and ahh-ing and decided to cast her arm, but A was still writhing and looking pained, so they cut the cast off and put on another one. When she seemed a little less likely to eviscerate someone they decided they'd got the situation under control and sent her home with instructions to return in a week for an evaluation.
A sleepless night follows for both of us as the poor chook is in too much pain to sleep, and I try to distract her with movies, mindless chatter and various juggling acts until such time as she falls into a sleep inspired by sheer exhaustion or mindless boredom.. I fail, and this mind altering sleeplessness is perpetuated for the whole week. neither of us remember much about the week other than the fact that we managed only a few hours sleep and it was all a bit shitty.
Monday comes around and the surgeon takes a look at the above Xray then calls all his other surgeon mates in for a look-see (something I've discovered is NOT a good thing) and they decide right then that she needs a plate put in, so they find a room full of old noisy, farty people and put her in bed, stop feeding her and stick a long needle in her arm and tell her to stay still.. The next two days are best not remembered, and in time she's released thinner, grumpier, drugged, and now the proud owner of a new piercing.
A fortnight passes, A keeps trying to go back to work, I keep threatening to velcro her into a chair, she makes me prepare food for her, I keep finding new episodes of 'The L Word' to watch and in general we're as happy as can be expected, but the arm still gives her trouble and she's still having to sleep in weird positions and eat lots of painkillers. We visit the nice people at the hospital again and they do another Xray and tell her she's got at least another 4 weeks in the cast and she is NOT to be lifting things/using her arm as a crowbar/thinking about cricket or anything at all that involves her arm. Regarding the long term prognosis, she's got the plate for at least a year, probably permanently, and cricket has been declared by the doctors a no-go for at least a year.
..it's now 4 and a half weeks and here she is, clean and showered and permitted out of the house, proudly displaying her colourful cast :-)
So what's the moral of all this? Don't trust the assistant vice captain to bowl at the vice captain? Sport is good for your health? People who have to wear thick glasses need additional padding (preferably body armour) ? - dunno, but I know when I sit quietly in front of the PC chain smoking, or sit eating bags of sugar with Celia then nothing bad happens to me.. Whatever.. She got a free piercing that's more extreme than most piercings - pretty neat, huh?
Well, it's been a while and A's arm has healed a bit. She's got some movement back and she doesn't say 'ow shit' as much and aside from a small unusual problem, she'll be right as rain soon enough methinks. The nice security guards wher she works have been giving her heaps about her dodgy security pass which didn't have the most flattering pic and they issued her with a new one the other day - here it is:
11:38 a.m. - 2005-12-23
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