4 March 2011 (Friday) - Broken Children

Last week I cleaned out the fish pond filter with a view to opening the pond up again soon as it was so mild. This morning I found myself scraping ice off of the car. What a difference from last week.

And so to work, which had all the makings of an average day. Just after lunch my phone rang. “My Boy ^TM ” was on his way to A&E – he’d had an accident at work. One of the advantages of working in a hospital is that when family and friends are taken ill, I’m already on site.

I went upstairs and found him in a wheelchair in the A&E waiting area waiting to be seen. He had a mate with him, so he had company. There wasn’t much I could do, so I left him there with instructions to let me know when there were any developments.

I phoned ‘er indoors ^TM who (like me) realised that there wasn’t much she could achieve by clucking over him. I phoned “Daddies Little Angel ^TM ” who sounded as though she’d burst into tears at the news. Funny how for a pair who fought like cat and dog for years, they now seem to get on so well. “Daddies Little Angel ^TM ” announced she was coming up to the hospital to take charge.

After a couple of hours had passed and I’d heard nothing, I went back to A&E to see what was going on. I found “My Boy ^TM ” lying face down on a bench in “Minor Injuries”. He was being ferociously guarded by “Daddies Little Angel ^TM ”, who told me there were two fractures in his foot. The lad was obviously in pain, and he told me he’d been offered no pain relief. I queried this with a passing doctor who replied with a stream of gibberish. I don’t know what language he spoke – it wasn’t English. I turned to the nurse at this doctor’s side who translated that pain relief had been offered, but “My Boy ^TM ” hadn’t wanted it. I asked if they had actually looked at him – obviously he was in great pain. As a sop to me they offered him an ibuprofen tablet, with the proviso that plastering the broken foot would be delayed by half an hour whilst the tablet took effect.

The nurse made no secret of her hostility toward me. Presumably up till now she’d had a broken lad who was not going to complain, and his obviously distraught sister; neither of whom knew hospital procedures. Faced with someone who knew something about medical matters wasn’t something that she liked. She very rudely announced that because the injured person was of age she would only speak with him. She didn’t actually say “F*?! off fatso”, but that was clearly her attitude to me.

Understandably “My Boy ^TM ” wanted to get home, and he told them to proceed with the plastering without giving him the ibuprofen tablet. I said nothing, but remembered that I’ve been up to the same A&E department with back pains in the past year and been given morphine injections for the pain. I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t give him a similar jab.

As we drove home, so his foot really started to give him some grief. I’m just hoping it will be better in time for his holiday in a month or so.

I did a couple of hours’ overtime, and then came home. The original plan for tonight was to be going to Folkestone to see the ELO Experience at the Leas Cliff Hall. Unfortunately having found myself rather strapped for cash lately, we decided not to go to this event. Last year when we saw this band in Tenterden the tickets were twelve quid each. Tonight they were twenty four quid each. That’s serious inflation…