faustus: (Default)
faustus ([personal profile] faustus) wrote2009-06-28 05:41 pm
Entry tags:

Spring Break II

Part I

Scene: The Pub
L: So, is your arm broken then?
F: I don't know.
L: Oh come on, you should have been to the hospital by now. You are such a man.
F: I have been to the hospital.
L: So you went to the hospital ... but didn't talk to anyone?
F: No, I went and I was examined. I was there four, five hours.
L: Did they take an x-ray.
F: Yes.
L: And?
F: They don't know if it's broken.
L: The x-ray looked okay then?
F: Aside from the straight line on the bone.



They don't hold the xray film up to the light - it's a on a monitor, and needs a mouse to move it around. That's me, that is. I've not seen inside me for years, if ever. The nurse looks at it, and frowns. She doesn't think it is broken. There's line across the bone, which might be a hairline fracture. So it might be broken. There is evidence of an impacted fatty packet, so something is wrong.

That would explain the pain then.

The nurse and another nurse argue about whether I'd being discharged or referred. One claims that as I won't see them again and am leaving the hospital it's a discharge. On the other hand I have to see the fracture consultant.


Two weeks pass, and I'm well on time for the appointment. Unfortunately there are several people ahead of me, and the receptionist is on the phone. I'm still sat down well before time, but hardly hear my name as the doctor clearly can't project.

I tell him the story, losing a week in the process and I'm prodded and press. It does hurt, but no more so than being prodded in the hand and arm usually is. He asks my age and job, which seems unlikely to be relevant. He asks me if the wrist was xrayed, and I wonder if he's seen the elbow one.

That's it. He thinks it isn't broken. I'm out of there by the time of the appointment, so catch a bus into town for a coffee. There I run into a friend, and two hours later go to pick stuff up from the campus, running into four people who all need conversations on the way. A lucky escape, it seems.