Thursday, March 08, 2007

My first skiing accident

So last night I had my final ski lesson before we go away on holiday which happens to include a long weekend skiing in Whistler.

During this (otherwise pretty good) ski lesson, I happened to take a tumble and jabbed my thumb in the process. Don't ask me quite how, I don't exactly know. Anyhow, for the lesson, I ignored and really didn't notice it. It was only when it got in that I noticed it was a bit swollen. Nothing major.

Anyhow, Claire packed it in ice, bandaged me up so it didn't swell and I went to bed.

The following morning it looked the same as the previous night. Still a bit sore so I (we) bandaged it up again and I went to work. It was only by lunch time when it had started to swell that things started to become an issue. It started to throb, and kept on swelling. Following intervention by the first aid lady my workmates basically instructed me to go to hospital to get it checked out. So I went, relunctantly, becuase I still have loads to do before my last day tomorrow.

Anyhow, trying to work out the most rapid way of sorting this out I went to the NHS 'drop in' centre in Wembley, just 30 minutes down the road from work. This was a little hard to find but find it I did. Ten minutes later I was in with the GP. He was instantly concerned and said I had to have X-ray. However, there were no X-ray facilities on-site and I had to go to Northwick Park Hospital.

Ok, now this was a mission. With mobile assistance from Claire (and no help from the drop in centre staff) and a few wrong turns and one dodgy bus journey later I was at Northwick Park Hospital. And omg, what a class 1 shit hole it was. Spalling concrete, wailing mothers, large expanses of worn lino flooring and the smell of a badly run tower block.

So I find the X-ray department in this turd hole filled with hoardes of people who looked liked they'd been queueing there for days. Anyway, after queueing for five minutes I get to the front of the queue and the work shy wench on the reception takes a brief look at my referal card and, in summary, told me she had never heard of the place I had been referred from and in any case it wasn't valid as the GP hadn't signed it. 'You have to go to a&e here first' (great! a&e in this shit hole). Meanwhile my thumb is throbbing more. It is now three hours since I left work.

At this point I was a bit fed up with proceedings so decided to ditch the whole lot and start again at a half way decent hospital. So it was back on the bus, then tube, then another bus. Picked up my car from Claire's and went to Hillingdon Hospital, which I arrived at at 4, where I was X-rayed and diagnosed quickly. Thankfuly only a severe bruise, no break or fracture. Finally out at 5:30. If only I had just gone with my gut intinct and by-passed the London hospitals in the first instance.

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