‘OK, Lola, you are not going to like me now,’ the radiographer tells me.
I didn’t realise I liked him before. Well, what’s to like? So far all he’s done is talk to me like I’m a clumsy child and ask me a bunch of personal questions about my menstrual cycle.
‘I’m going to have to move your leg into the right position for the x-ray,’ he tells me through an incredibly forced smile.
‘OK,’ I say, taking a deep breath. I already know how this goes. It’s been two hours since I fell, and the majority of those two hours have been spent slowly transporting me to the hospital, because the slightest movement of my leg causes me the worst pain I have ever felt in my life.
The radiographer begins moving my leg into position.
‘Shit, shit, shit, shit.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. He sounds like he means it.
‘I’m sorry for swearing,’ I reply.
‘It’s OK, you have a free pass in here,’ he assures me. ‘And I’ve heard much worse.’
That’s fortunate, because I know much worse. I wish I’d had a free pass to swear on the journey here. I kept getting these stabbing pains in my leg, and every time it happened, I couldn’t help but drop S-bombs, and each time I did, you could guarantee there was a child lurking around. We had to apologise to a lot of parents on the way here – at the hotel, as the paramedics did their best to carefully get me off the dance floor and into the ambulance, and then at the hospital as they wheeled me to A & E.
‘Well, I can see the problem here,’ he finally says after taking my x-rays. He doesn’t say much more than that though. I wait with bated breath, until he comes over to move my leg again, making me (as) comfortable (as is possible right now) in my wheelchair.
‘You’ve broken your leg,’ he tells me.
‘What? Really?’
‘Really,’ he replies.
I mean, it is very painful, more painful than anything I’ve ever felt in my life, but I didn’t think it was broken. In fact, after I fell, the first thing I did was insist that I didn’t want to go to hospital. Even when we arrived here, and the nurse asked me to rate my pain on a scale from one to ten, I gave it a six and turned down painkillers because I didn’t actually think it was broken. I thought I was just being a big baby.
‘You’re not actually a doctor though, are you?’ I say. ‘You could be wrong?’
The radiographer’s eyebrows shoot up. I wasn’t trying to offend him, I just meant that, maybe he could be wrong? He has to be wrong. I really, really can’t have a broken leg right now.
He wheels me across the room, in my wheelchair with my leg sticking out in front of me, sticks my x-ray on the wall and flicks a switch. As the x-ray comes alive, my hope dies.
‘See that there,’ he says, pointing to a bone that is broken clean in half.
‘Yes,’ I reply softly.
‘That’s your fibula,’ he replies. ‘And yours is screwed.’
‘Are … are you allowed to say that?’ I ask, a little taken aback.
‘Everyone gets a free pass in here,’ he replies moodily.
I guess I must’ve offended him when I said he wasn’t a doctor. I wasn’t being sassy with him, I was just really hoping he might be wrong.
As he wheels me along the corridor, I spot Patrick.
‘Hey,’ I call out.
‘Hey, what’s cracking?’ he asks, looking up from his iPhone.
‘Her fibula,’ the radiographer tells him. ‘You can take her the rest of the way back.’
‘Thanks for all your help,’ I call after him guiltily.
‘You’ve broken it?’ Patrick asks me in disbelief.
‘Now that I think about it, I did feel a sort of … popping sensation.’
‘Christ,’ he replies. ‘Well, let’s get you to the doctor, get you patched up.’
I puff air from my cheeks as Patrick wheels me back to the minor injuries unit. We’ve had nine amazing months of going out on lovely dates, enjoying romantic evenings in, entire days in the bedroom … This is our first trip to A & E though. I suppose all couples have to have one eventually, right?
‘I still don’t understand how you did it,’ he says.
‘I just lost my footing,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t exactly diving for the bouquet. It’s these silly bridesmaid shoes Gia made me wear.’
Patrick sighs. ‘Women and shoes,’ he says as he wheels me back to see the doctor.
‘So, it’s broken,’ the doctor says, appearing from behind the curtain. ‘Fancy that codeine now?’
‘Yes please,’ I reply.
Now I know I’m not going to be able to shift the pain with a bag of ice and a couple of days off my feet, give me all the drugs.
‘Here we are,’ she says, handing me two paper cups: one with a tablet and one with water.
I knock it back.
‘So, you’ve broken your fibula, I’m afraid,’ she tells me. ‘I’m just going to run your x-ray by the orthopaedic surgeon, see what he says.’
‘OK,’ I reply. My heart is in my mouth.
‘Surgeon?’ I say to Patrick. ‘Am I going to need an operation?’
‘Calm down,’ he insists. ‘We’re … it’s going to be OK.’
Is it?! It doesn’t seem like it is.
I can’t help but notice Patrick’s bedside manner – or lack thereof. He isn’t being very patient or reassuring. He isn’t rubbing my shoulder or holding my hand. He seems deeply uncomfortable with the hospital generally. I suppose some people are just like that.
‘OK,’ the doctor says as she reappears through the curtain. ‘So, we’ve had a chat and, as you’re relatively young, an operation probably isn’t necessary. You should heal just fine in a cast.’
I can’t help but take issue with her use of ‘relatively young’ – I’m only thirty-two, for Christ’s sake. Don’t tell me I’m on the verge of old, brittle bones yet!
‘OK,’ I reply.
‘I’ll get you a prescription for some codeine to take home, OK?’
‘OK,’ I reply.
Why does everyone – myself included – keep saying OK? This is absolutely not OK, and repeatedly saying it’s OK isn’t going to make it O-bloody-K.
My cast goes much higher up my leg than I expected it to. It’s big, and bulky, and I hate the way it smells. It certainly doesn’t match the stocking on my other leg.
I notice Patrick staring at it with a look of discomfort. He winces, as he watches me shuffle to find comfort in my wheelchair.
Patrick wheels me out into the hospital reception. It must be quite late now. All I want is to sleep. If I sleep, things might feel easier in the morning.
As he manoeuvres me through a doorway he catches my wheelchair on the frame. The jolt sends a wave of pain around every nerve ending in my body. I turn my head to look at him, only to realise he’s looking at something on his phone while he pushes me with one hand.
‘Patrick!’
‘Sorry, sorry, it’s work,’ he says.
It’s always work with him. Being a stockbroker is, apparently, a twenty-four hour a day job. I say apparently because I honestly have no way of knowing whether this is true or not. Aside from the most basic knowledge of stocks, I don’t really get what he does. I just know that it makes him very angry, and he’s always on his phone. So perhaps it is a twenty-four hour a day job, perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on him.
‘I’ll go book a taxi,’ Patrick says. ‘Get you home to your bed.’
‘Can I come to yours?’ I ask him.
‘Wouldn’t you be happier in your own home?’ he replies.
‘Perhaps, if I didn’t have a stupid bloody step up into my bathroom.’
I curse myself. When I was flat hunting, I thought the cute little step up to my bathroom was, well, cute. It made it look like a mini spa. I never imagined I’d be wheelchair bound. Now I’m kicking myself … or I would be, if I physically could.
‘Oh, right.’ Patrick scratches his head. ‘Yes, OK then.’
As he wanders off to book us a taxi, a wave of cramp grips my broken leg, just like it kept doing on the walk over – I suppose from holding it in one careful but awkward position for so long.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ I can’t help but blurt out.
Right on cue, a toddler waddles out from behind one of the pillars.
Every single one of my excruciating agony-fuelled outbursts so far has had an accidental audience of someone who shouldn’t be watching anything more than a PG, at best.
There’s nothing I can do but watch, as the giddy little boy’s legs turn to jelly underneath him and he flops to the floor with a clap, in that way toddlers always seem to go down. As he bursts into tears, his dad finally appears and picks him up. Poor kid, I know just how he feels (let’s casually gloss over the fact that I have thirty-two years’ experience with my feet, compared to his maximum of two).
His dad dusts him down and his crying stops all at once, as though someone has flicked a switch. The little boy is absolutely fine. In fact, it’s only a matter of seconds before he’s waddling around again.
Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to be quite so easy for me.