No, not the name of a mountain, or a Cherokee Chief, but a broken digit at the end of my foot, and it's no joke. I am writing this from a prone position on the sofa where I am trying to enforce rest on myself and elevate my foot and get the other end of me, my head, round how much has to be done and thought about when you're a wife and mother. Stereotyped, but true. What they have to take to school each day. What they must do when they come back. Jobs they have to undertake around the house. Making sure they come upstairs to give me a kiss before they go. Trying not to get at the husband, who is fantastic bless him and a natural at dishwasher emptying, washing hanging, children dragooning. I am still in charge of cooking, though.
Viz work, thank the Lord I covered several days last month, and don't have a rigid full time job commuting to London or something, because hopefully I can get away without going to the office until after Xmas.
So, how did it happen? With a wobbly left leg already, I managed to get my big toe tangled in Ed's draw string PE bag, dragged it halfway across the hall, felt a huge wrench, and when I landed on the bottom step of the stairs I felt no actual pain because of the numbness in my foot, but there was my big toe sticking out sideways at 90 degrees like something out of the Exorcist.
Long story short, my father took me to A&E as I felt too peculiar to drive myself to Winchester (spots before eyes, nausea etc) and Richard had unavoidable commitments at work. The A&E at Andover, nearer my parents, is very small, new, neat and quiet. Even so we were there for 3 hours. I have never broken a bone before, despite plunging off horses when I was young, playing hockey, slipping on ice rinks, increasingly falling over in streets, and being chucked off the back of a motorbike on Shepherds Bush roundabout in 1987. But the X ray showed that now I have a dislocated and broken big toe. So two very nice nurses lay me down on a couch and 're-aligned' the dislocated joint like they do in 'Casualty' and boy did the feeling come back to my foot then. It was shocking, sickening pain, and horrible, but I eschewed gas and air although I loved it when having my babies because it meant staying longer in the hospital.
So.A follow up visit to the fracture clinic where Iwas shown my own Xray and the wide crack running down my toe, and was told no weight on it for 2 weeks, and probably won't be fully mobile for 4-6 weeks. Apparently a stick glue will form, forming a callus to heal it. Meanwhile, enforced rest. Elevated foot. Lady Muck barking orders from bed or sofa. Crutches to hobble round the house, and I borrowed a wheelchair from the Red Cross for Richard to take me round Tesco. Not a lot of people know that you can do that. It's free! No reason to be housebound, which can also make you agoraphobic. Wheelchairs. There's another story. How people react differently to you, even if you're wearing lipstick. Will talk about that in my next post. For now, I have no excuse not to get on with writing projects including this blog. More anon!
Viz work, thank the Lord I covered several days last month, and don't have a rigid full time job commuting to London or something, because hopefully I can get away without going to the office until after Xmas.
So, how did it happen? With a wobbly left leg already, I managed to get my big toe tangled in Ed's draw string PE bag, dragged it halfway across the hall, felt a huge wrench, and when I landed on the bottom step of the stairs I felt no actual pain because of the numbness in my foot, but there was my big toe sticking out sideways at 90 degrees like something out of the Exorcist.
Long story short, my father took me to A&E as I felt too peculiar to drive myself to Winchester (spots before eyes, nausea etc) and Richard had unavoidable commitments at work. The A&E at Andover, nearer my parents, is very small, new, neat and quiet. Even so we were there for 3 hours. I have never broken a bone before, despite plunging off horses when I was young, playing hockey, slipping on ice rinks, increasingly falling over in streets, and being chucked off the back of a motorbike on Shepherds Bush roundabout in 1987. But the X ray showed that now I have a dislocated and broken big toe. So two very nice nurses lay me down on a couch and 're-aligned' the dislocated joint like they do in 'Casualty' and boy did the feeling come back to my foot then. It was shocking, sickening pain, and horrible, but I eschewed gas and air although I loved it when having my babies because it meant staying longer in the hospital.
So.A follow up visit to the fracture clinic where Iwas shown my own Xray and the wide crack running down my toe, and was told no weight on it for 2 weeks, and probably won't be fully mobile for 4-6 weeks. Apparently a stick glue will form, forming a callus to heal it. Meanwhile, enforced rest. Elevated foot. Lady Muck barking orders from bed or sofa. Crutches to hobble round the house, and I borrowed a wheelchair from the Red Cross for Richard to take me round Tesco. Not a lot of people know that you can do that. It's free! No reason to be housebound, which can also make you agoraphobic. Wheelchairs. There's another story. How people react differently to you, even if you're wearing lipstick. Will talk about that in my next post. For now, I have no excuse not to get on with writing projects including this blog. More anon!
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