Why I Can't Restart My Newsletter Yet...

... though technically I have, with this post.

I was dying to restart this newsletter after a summer of contemplation (for that, read excessive navel gazing.) I could feel the sap rising as September approached, and I fizzed with excitement. 

And then came an unfortunate event. I fell off a patio with a drop at the end. And I felt unmerciful pain shoot through my leg.

I thought I was all right at first. Painkillers give you that illusion. After a while, the pain levelled off. I was able to put some weight on my leg, and though it swelled, it didn’t quite swell to balloon size.

It’ll be grand. It’ll be grand. It’ll be grand, I kept saying over the next two days. It had to be. I was to go on holidays in the coming week.

But after much nagging from loved ones, I bit the bullet and phoned the doctor yesterday. Who recommended A&E ‘but just as a precaution, because it’s very unlikely you have a fracture.’

So, in I went. And the system was grand and streamlined… at first (of which more later.) Go to A&E reception, then Minor Injuries Unit, then X-ray, then back to Minor Injuries. The doctor in Minor Injuries was shruggish.

‘You just twisted it.’

‘Will I be able to go on my holidays,’

‘Of course.’

Then the X-ray came back. I could see the picture of gleaming bone. It was a distance away and my eyes are wonky, but the picture was big and clear. The doctor was asking me for my phone number, and if I had any allergies. And I knew.

The doctor came over to me, the shrug entirely gone from his demeanour.  

‘You have a fracture,’ he said.

I could hear the surprise in his voice, the surprise of someone who didn’t expect to get it wrong.

Photo Description: Here’s a slightly gnarly picture of me in the brace they gave me at the hospital, with loose black and white pants underneath. I’m holding crutches with green handles.

Then came the less streamlined part of the experience. Since I was now being handed over to Radiology, I had to wait for them. And wait. And wait. And wait. Not that long in the grand scheme of things – three hours. But I’d already been there two hours. If it weren’t for the fracture, I would have been home in two hours.

I’ve to wait till Friday now for my scan. As I write, I’m splinted up. I could regard this as God kicking me up the behind and telling me to write. Or a sign that since I’ve already been away twice this year, this holiday wasn’t meant to be.

But I believe signs are what you make them. To be confined just as I was planning to take flight again, in many ways, is frustrating. But I’ve no excuse now not to get writing. I’ll bring my notebook on Friday, and be thankful that I can rely on writing to get me through.