Bizarre ER: A Tale Told In Four Insta Stories

So I didn't think that I would be able to post today because I really cannot type with my left hand any more, and, funnily enough, that is what today's post is about. Luckily, I discovered this very handy dictation tool on my computer!! It's kind of weird and I'm scared to use it because I'm worried it will affect my writing style but that's because I'm paranoid little bitch who takes herself too seriously. (It's so funny that my computer will type out “paranoid little bitch” for me, straightfaced, unjudging. Or maybe it is judging me, I don't know). But it is also often a question of mine - you know when people can't write in exam, so they’re given a scribe? How can they possibly think that that's the same? Surely your language and thought patterns would change with a change in communication style, and it would affect your mark? But anyway. So here I am in bed, annunciating very hard, feeling like a Vlogger but without the camera.

It all started last night. I was lying in bed (are you beginning to see a pattern here?) listening to Tauro Boys, as you do, and, as is the case when my arm isn’t swelled up from the heat, my cast was very loose. Now, I've tried before to take my cast off by wiggling my arm out of it, because I think I could if I tried hard enough. But this time I got really close. Like, REALLY close. The only thing stopping me was that it was pulling at my wrist joint a little bit and i didn’t want to undo the healing. I posted about it on my Instagram story, laughing about how obsessive I was and how I couldn't stop thinking about pulling it all the way out:

And Annalise, bless her soul, informed me that my cast should not in fact be this loose. 

That kinda did make sense to me– I been able to twist my wrist a lot it was actually beginning to hurt. So I looked it up online, and she she was right. The next day, more out of boredom than anything, I called the hospital to see if I needed to come in. They put me onto health direct, who informed me that yes, I did need to come in, and within 12 hours at that. I had shit to do that day, so I went and did those things, and then drove myself, with Lauren, to the hospital, where reception told me to go to A&E. So we went to A&E and told them what was up, and before I could even post an Insta story from the waiting-room, my name had been called. 

Lauren and I were extremely surprised - we'd expected a long wait because of the triage system. I’d even packed my laptop so I could get some work done. A very annoyed-looking doctor with a white sheet over his shoulders like a headless ghost costume took us through to another waiting-room, and I thought, oh okay, this is where we’ll wait. But no - even here, I was treated straight away. In fact, the hospital was so overcrowded that the doctor pulled up a table and treated me right there in the waiting room. I was very confused as to the urgency with which I was being seen - I know for a fact that a broken arm can be left for a week without treatment. (I know this because my dad’s friend David, Felix's godfather and an A&E doctor, used it as an excuse to not to go to the hospital after he had split his head open in Italy while speeding down a mountain on a bike.) But I wasn't complaining.

This same no-nonsense ghost doctor took my x-ray CD from Japan, struggled with opening it for a good 10 minutes (we could see this unfold on his computer from where we were sitting in the waiting room), and then came back and said, “you have what my wife would call a Man Fracture”.

Being as I am mercifully distanced from the whole “men are from Venus, women are from Mars” Gen X culture, I innocently enquired, “what is that?”

And he replied – no joke – “A Pussy fracture. No displacement.” Why the fuck was he treating me so quickly then? He then walked off, came back with a vacuum-cleaner-like machine, and handed Lauren the attachment with a fucking circular saw on the end. 

He wandr’d the waiting room looking for a place to plug it in, but couldn’t find one. He ended up unplugging a computer. And then it he began to saw my cast off right there. Plaster dust flying everywhere! I could hear murmurs of amusement from behind me,  but I dared not look. (The saw actually went all the way down and touched my arm a couple of times, but it didn't hurt. In fact, the blade didn't look like it was moving at all?) Nevertheless it came off, and miraculously, deliciously, for the first time in three weeks I was able to wash my left forearm. It was such a relief getting that dirty cast off. My palm was literally brown. I took my time at the sink, relishing what little cleanliness I would have in that region for the next few weeks. The rest is pretty boring and un-bizarre - ghost doctor used plaster of Paris this time, and taped my arm up again nice and snug. It's a much skinnier, softer cast, but because it's doing its job now, I can't move that wrist at all, which means my left hand is pretty much useless–even more useless than it was before. As previously mentioned, I can't type. I also can't use it to even hold down the steering wheel, which I was previously doing while driving. So on the drive back, I had to completely rely on my right-hand. It wasn't a disaster – surely one-armed people are allowed to drive. Lauren and I listened to Billie Eilish and wobbly drove home.

I still haven't told my parents – but I guess they’ll find out when the bill comes to the house!