Pain - Please go away (part 1) …….

I have a pain in my upper right leg, near the hip but also just down from that. It hurts to

Stand Up
Walk
Run
Lean
Lay on my right side.
Sit with my legs crossed

Eleven years ago I had a motorbike accident in which a wayward driver decided to plant their car in front of my moving bike. I had a choice of

1.) Ditching the bike or
2.) Hitting the car and flying over the top.
3.) Building a time machine and going back in time to stop myself taking that route home or flattening the car tyres so they couldn’t make that journey

Not being Dr Who or even one of his lovely assistants ruled out Option 3. Had I been Olga Korbut I might have taken the second option and flown over the car, done a triple pike, with a somersault culminating in me landing on my feet, shouting a chorus of “Tada!” and flashing a cheeky smile at the cameras and judges.

But I wasn’t the delightful Ms Korbut, or a clone of her. So I took option 1 and ditched the bike. I was doing around 50 at the time so it fucking hurt when I hit the deck. I remember screaming like a girl (sorry girls but you do scream!) as the pain seared through me, and the shock and fear hammered home. I rolled into the opposite lane and opened my eyes in time to see the wheel of the oncoming lorry stop about 5 feet from my head.

In that one instant my previous typical young bloke sense of immortality disappeared forever. From that moment of impact I would start to think frequently of my lucky escape but also of the thought that one day I would shuffle off this mortal coil like everyone else. It changed my life.

I was rushed to hospital in an ambulance where I removed my own helmet (a precaution to ensure they don’t do any further damage to your skull because you’ll know if it can come off safely and painlessly) where I was ignored for 45 minutes before a nice pleasant and very attractive nurse asked me to remove my jeans. Blimey, just my luck to get a chance like this when I was obviously temporarily disabled. No…….No…obviously it was because of my injuries and they wanted to X-Ray me but at that age (32) and being single that thought would go through any blokes head. I was then manhandled into the X-Ray room after being given some painkillers. After about 3 hours, in excruciating pain, unable to stand or sit, with a broken wrist now heavily strapped I was sent home. The Chris Evans lookalike Young Doctor said that the X-Rays showed a bit of bruising and twisting and that in a week or so after plenty of rest I’d be reasonably mobile again. He must have done 100 hours that week, or maybe it actually was Chris Evans because he was very wrong. I stayed with a (now former) friend who happened to be a nurse. She looked after me, made me comfortable and fed me. I smoked through the night unable to sleep through pain, despite being as heavily dosed with painkillers as was legal without knocking me out. The next day she did me a Bacon sarnie and some tea. It was so nice that despite the pain I followed it with a Sausage sarnie. As I ate, she answered a phone call and the transcript of what I heard was

“……..yes, Jack the Grocer is here”

“Oh…….oh dear……..well that explains why he’s in so much pain then”………

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT POST…………….

Later, GrocerJack