Day 110 – Final Ankle Visit

There was some anxiety as the visit to the fracture clinic got closer.  My leg was hurting with a similar style of pain to when the ankle first broke.  The swelling of Day 107 was as bad as it had been since the break. 

Stop. Hold on a second.  Is this Herring’s Laws of Cure happening? If you don’t know what these laws are here’s a quote (Ballentine, 1999):

Herring’s Laws of Cure states:

The curative process moves:

·       from within outward

·       from the more important to the less important organs

·       in the reverse order of the onset of the symptoms

·       from above downward

Considering what the last couple of days have felt like with the ankle, my guess is the ankle area is still healing.  So why has the bone healed, and the ligaments are still healing?  Here’s the theory (my theory); the ligaments stretched on the way down to the max before the break happened.  Obviously, it all happened so fast it seemed like the same time.  The bone being the most important part of the fall healed first at any rate.

Okay, back to today.  Traffic was heavier than expected, so was running about five minutes late.  Got to the hospital carpark (the fracture clinic is inside) right on time.  Not bad.  Just park the car and I’ll be five minutes late, right? Wrong!  The carpark was a nightmare…. OMG!  Parking spots from the floor you entered in on to the top (nine levels) were all taken.  Not to mention people waiting for other cars to leave blocking moving traffic in any direction.  

At the top you realise there are no spots (25 minutes has passed).  Frustratingly, you get charged for the first half hour and every hour thereafter.  Rather than waste any more time in the carpark, it was time to leave.  There was a faint glimmer of hope that perhaps I would luck onto a spot on the way down. 

When I arrived at the entrance, the exit had been blocked!  When I say blocked, I mean boom gates, roadblock and numerous signs across the exit directing you to go to the other exit two floors down.  Just at that moment the attendant came out of his booth and caught my open window and advised if I was looking for a park to head toward the exit but veer slightly to the left and there were some parking spots there. Thank you!

By this time, there was only the faint glimmer of hope left of a quick and speedy doctor visit, if the clinic was able to fit me in at all.  It’s funny.  There’s a point when you’re late where you no longer stress about being late.  All the way driving to the hospital there was stress, during the first five minutes of the carpark the frustration built at not being able to quickly locate a spot.  The ten-minute mark in the carpark was peak frustration as the slim possibility of tolerance in terms of perhaps the clinic was running late and ten/ fifteen minutes wouldn’t make too much of a difference.  Once it hit the 20-minute mark, resignation had set in; there was either a long wait ahead or a “come back another day” request waiting at the clinic’s reception.

Then there came the lift.  Most COVID restrictions had been removed, we no longer needed to wear masks or sign in with QR codes, but the social distancing rules had not.  This meant lifts were restricted to four people and there were a number of people waiting for the lift in front of me.  Last visit people were riding the lift in the opposite direction to the direction they needed to go just so they would get to where they needed to go.  My guess, this hasn’t changed.  Out of the corner of my eye were the stairs and the staff were using them.  Do I attempt to go up seven flights of hospital stairs to get to where I’m going?  Of course!  After all, how late can it get?

Four flights up, the lack of exercise is beginning to show. After another flight, I walked to the lifts because nobody was waiting.  The lift opened and there were four in it already.  Fortunately for me, one was exiting.  Heading out of the lift (by the way, elevator for anyone unsure of what a lift is) toward fractures, rocked up to reception and looked at the waiting area designed to hold about 50-75 patients and saw four.  Relief. 

There was a glimmer of hope for me to see a doctor today, by the looks of the waiting area not too long a wait either.  The assumption proved correct, although there was still a wait before my x-ray escort accompanied me to the x-ray lounge – it’s not glamourous, it is a couple of chairs in a hospital hallway and I’m the only one that’s called it the x-ray lounge.

Wait 15 minutes. Have x-ray. Return to waiting area and wait for doctor.  Nurse comes out takes me to consultation room.  Doctor arrives with intern, x-ray all good.  No need for follow up appointment.  Stiffness and swelling are normal for about a year. In my head the response to this was, “what?!”, followed by “we’ll see about that!”.  What left my lips was, “Oh. Okay. That’s great. Thank you.”  That’s it.

It was then lunchtime.  While on the road, it was a quick trip to Ikea and the fabric shop. Grabbed a bite to eat then jumped online to catch the afternoon’s set of meetings.  Spoke to Anton again, any leftover animosity gone.  It’s now fun to tease him about the incident 😉. Finished work. Cut the fabric to fit the Ikea chair just purchased.  Done for the night.

Let’s see what the cards have to say!