One afternoon (about fifteen years ago actually), myself and some Uni friends were taking the rise out of one of our group who had broken his ankle playing basketball. After we'd exhausted the 'hopalong', 'clubfoot', 'clumsy tw@t' insults, I uttered the immortal words "I've never broken a bone before, I wonder what it feels like..?" (I know you know what's coming but don't ruin the punchline before I've told the joke!) Later that evening, I answered the communal phone in the halls of residence and the caller was the mum of my next door neighbour, who'd I'd just seen walking down the stairs. So I ran, full pelt, after her shouting. My shout quickly turned into a shriek as I fell from the top to the bottom, folding my leg firmly underneath me as I went. As I sat in a crumpled, sobbing heap in the stairwell, two things happened. Firstly, the girl whose mum was on the phone walked past me and laughed (Bloody laughed!!) and said "What are you doing down there?". I was in too much pain to say something clever like "Using my tears to wash the floor with my bum" so I just cried a bit more. And then, just to wind me a bit more, the aforementioned doofus who'd broken his ankle came over all Doc Marten and told me in no uncertain terms that mine wasn't broken.
As I returned from hospital many hours later, with a purple cast covering my two broken bones (TWO!! In your face basketball boy!!), I was in no doubt as to what a broken bone felt like. And the novelty wore off very early on in the eleven weeks I had to wear that I had to wear that cast for. Eleven weeks of wearing baggy sweatpants, of hobbling about with a humungous plastic shoe. And don't get me started on the weeks of having to build up my wizened old stick of a leg after the cast came off - it was like a knitting needle covered in dried skin and hair!
Of course, it was all downhill after the first break, having been jinxed by those haunting words. I then went on to break a finger decorating the kitchen (I knocked a clock off the wall, and in a save worthy of Peter Shilton, I grabbed the clock before it hit the ground. Smacking my finger on the doorframe in the process). And the hat-trick was breaking my middle knuckle chucking the cat out through the patio doors. I would rather go through childbirth than do that again, seriously.
I thought that after the three, my bone breaking days were done and behind me. And so yesterday - bank holiday Monday - as we joined the throngs of tourists at the Heights of Abraham in Matlock, it was just my luck that my ankle decided to spectacularly miss a step. My body did this crazy kind of fall flailing/grab something/nearly throw up from the pain thing. All in front of a beer garden of bikers. The kids had an exciting afternoon running round a hospital waiting room and were probably more excited about Mummy's "Skilts" (crutches) than they were about the cable cars and sightseeing.
My bones thankfully remain unbroken this time; my soft-tissue injury has been strapped up, elevated and regularly has painkillers directed at it. I have my Skilts to hop around on, and The Husband is doing his Husbandly duties - ringing me to tell me not to attempt the hoovering and helping me hobble to the loo. I have decided that it is just too risky for me to leave the house. If I venture out, it will be with a crash helmet and my limbs covered with bubble wrap Heck, if I can break my hand painting and putting the cat out, it's probably safest if I just stay in bed!
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