Hospital

I recently had the pleasure of getting a foot injury. And though I tried to shake it off the discomfort was still forcing me to hobble along like John Wayne after a week, so I spoke to my doctor who advised me to get an X-ray at A&E. The advantage of planning a visit to A&E is that you can search for the least busy time – just after the morning rush and before people have had long enough in the day to damage themselves, play sport or get drunk. I even had time to organise the laptop so I could work if I got stuck there for hours. So I turned up wondering who else I would be competing with. It’s a great game to play, guessing what is wrong with everyone else.

There was another chap there who looked uninjured when sitting down. He was dressed like a charity collector, with clipboard, charity top and name badge. I wondered whether he was actually on an ill-thought-through charity drive. Nobody donated, nor did he approach anyone asking for money, so I guess not.  At least three people had limps. That seemed to be the most common injury, but that’s only based on being able to spot a limp, whereas an arm or internal injury can sometimes be hidden from view. I think a couple of the limpers had nothing wrong with their legs at all but had developed an ailment in order to fit in with the rest of the patients. I guess nobody in A&E wants to be the one who looks fit and healthy. Bringing a laptop did not help my cause. If anyone asks I’ll say I dropped it on my foot.

Aside from feeling judged by the other patients, you also get to feel judged by the staff. Not that they were worried, but I felt the need to apologise for being a week late to get the X-ray. And then I was given the form that you have to fill in for social science that asks you to confess your  average weekly alcohol intake. I wonder if there is an official adjustment factor that accounts for the fact that everybody errs on the side of caution when ticking the relevant (or possibly irrelevant) box. Nobody would overestimate the amount they drink, and the justification for our lower than accurate answers comes from knowing that there was once a week, at some point several years ago, when you went without alcohol entirely, probably because you were seriously ill or residing in Saudi Arabia, and therefore that week must drag the average down to a level you deem acceptable even though it probably still qualifies you to attend AA meetings free on the NHS.

When it came to being X-rayed, the foot had to be flat, so I got to sit on a bed with my knees up and my injured appendage beneath the laser machine of diagnosis. The radiographer gave me some form of heavy blanket to position between my legs, which was slightly unnerving. Presumably it prevents nasty X-ray beams from attacking my sensitive parts and stopping me from having children. I would have thought that protecting my head might have been equally important, not least in allowing me to make that choice for myself, but no blanket was forthcoming.

When the X-ray was done, I was directed into the area marked ‘Minors’. This seemed preferable to being lead into the area labelled ‘Majors’. I was shown to a cubicle and told that there was nothing they could do for me, basically because there was nothing wrong with me. Whilst here I was induced to ponder that age old question ‘What is a shin?’. Is it bone? Is it hard tissue? Why is it so hard? What does it do? Answers on a postcard please.