My Left Foot

The day before the floor man came to level the ground floor, we had to move ALL the furniture out of the way. As you know. Because I have already bored you with the Tale of Floor. Anyway, during this process, I was managing the top end of an 8 feet tall, very heavy, made from oak bookcase and Andy was managing the other end and we were lumping it up the stairs. I was leading the way and at one point, my left foot didn't quite make it up a riser because it was getting signals from my legs and back to have a bit of a breather.

'Stop!' said I to Andy. 

However, because Andy was exerting much concentration and effort at his end (the bottom end, ergo, the heavier end) he did not hear me, carried on lumping upwards and my left foot became jammed 'twixt bookcase and riser.

'Stop! STOP!!!' I yelled, because it kind of hurt a bit. Andy stopped, I extracted my foot, we continued upwards with the bookcase (which is now lying on its side in our bedroom because when we stood it up Bambino immediately said, 'Oooh, nice climbing frame. I bet I can bring that crashing down on you in the middle of the night and scare the bejeezus out of you') and I thought no more about my trapped foot incident beyond giving it a bit of a rub.

Forward to Saturday evening and I thought, 'My foot looks a bit red. Feels a bit sore.' I gave it a bit of a rub. Thought no more of it.

Sunday it started swelling. It looked like this...

I was thinking, surely this isn't from Wednesday? But it must have been because I could think of no other reason. No drunking staggering home from the pub and falling off a pavement. No livid elephant in a zoo stamping its foot on my foot because I'd provided the wrong kind of bun. No being bitten by a snake. Andy said, 'Has something bitten you?' because the last time my foot swelled up like this was from a horse fly bite which eventually required the assistance of steroids to help it subside. 

Monday the swelling was worse. Sort of massive lump, red and shiny worse. Stiff, pain in the middle of the swelling. Up to my ankle. In fact, I was concerned enough for us to go to A & E because I thought 'What if it's broken?' The triage nurse didn't even bother looking at my face let alone my foot. Still typing on her keyboard and staring fixedly at the screen (she could have been playing Candy Crush for all I know) she said, 'I won't lie to you there's a six hour wait minimum you can wait to see someone if you really want to but you might as well go home and see your GP if you decide to do that let us know.' No advice, no concern, no flicker of a humanity behind the mask. And no punctuation either.

Oh well, I thought, thanks for that. And went home. (After paying £3 parking fee for a stay of barely half an hour. Insult to injury.)

During these days I had been administering various home spun remedy ideas like doses of TCP, bags of frozen runner beans, sitting with it WAY up on piles of cushions, massages with oat based moisturisers and peppermint based moisturisers, and trying to channel some healing into myself which I'm not great at because I'm not a very patient patient. I saw the local pharmacist who, despite being obviously busy, showed concern and humanity, and gave me some advice which basically was stay off it as much as possible, keep on with the cold compresses but perhaps not bags of frozen runners, and that it would mend itself in its own good time, I just had to be patient. Ibuprofen, maybe? No, said I. I'm allergic. Paracetemol, then.  But, he said, he doubted VERY much it was broken. I thanked him and went home to scrape wallpaper from the walls.

Wednesday and Thursday, and my left foot was under much scrutiny for signs of improvement by both myself and Himself Lord Malarkey. Lord Malarkey said, 'Go to the GP.' I said, 'If the mardy mare in A & E wasn't bothered, then I am sure I don't need to further burden the NHS by taking up a doctor's time with my pathetic concerns,' because I was still feeling narky about the aforesaid nurse, and egotistical about my injury being the MOST important thing, and not at all calm and spiritual. Besides, I could see the swelling was slowly subsiding (in a sibilant kind of way - a freebie language feature for English teachers and writers there!) and a four-hourly dose of one paracetemol all day (and even then I sometimes forgot) was allowing me to pretty much go about my daily business i.e wallpaper scraping, knitting, hen-wrangling and trying to stop Bambino eating bits of soggy wallpaper.

This morning I woke up to this...

One MAHOOSIVE bruise! Still swollen in the middle, as you can see. The Injury Epicentre, as I have fondly named it, which now covers an area of around an inch square rather than the 3 inch square area it was three days ago. Not that I'm keeping obsessive notes or anything. I know it still looks hideous but it feels better unless I press it, so I shan't do that then. But I can actually see the base of my toes and a bit of ankle bone today and I can get my welly boots on which I couldn't do at the beginning of the week, well, not without excrutiating pain anyway. 

Slow, slow progress. But progress. And I know in the grand scheme of Bad Things That Can Happen To A Person this registers only slightly on the scale, just above feeling slightly miffed that the supermarket has run out of red pepper hummus. However, it is the best traumatic incident report I can offer you this week. 

And as I said before, I am not a patient patient. I'll end on a cheerful note with a photo of Number Two Granddaughter styling out a hat...