MY LEFT FOOT…

…is broken! Or, to be specific, my fifth metatarsal is suffering from a stress fracture. My God! What a state I’m in - even my FEET are stressed!

Strange how a bizarre chain of events can lead to five hours sitting in A & E waiting rooms, x-ray waiting rooms, fracture clinic waiting rooms…

There I was, yesterday, on one of those long bendy buses, so beloved by the Mayor of London, on my way to Victoria… We were on the middle of Vauxhall Bridge, when a passenger came down from the far-off distant end of the bus to speak to the driver.

“There’s a man being ill at the back of the bus,” she told him. “Ill?” he asked. “Being sick,” she replied; and then added, graphically, “It’s everywhere and now it’s running down the bus!”

She wasn’t exaggerating. The stench was already all pervasive and the occupants of that end of the bus were rapidly migrating ahead of a veritable river of vomit…

The driver pulled over and, not unreasonably, announced that the bus was being taken out of service. We were all hustled off and in the pushing and shoving I stepped down awkwardly, was conscious of a searing pain in my left foot and felt - and maybe even heard - a CRACK!

So, one man’s nausea is another man’s fracture and that is how I got to spend so many hours at the hospital and, as a prize for endurance, won myself a pair of crutches…

Offered the option of a plaster cast last evening or a wait till this morning in order to have the lighter-weight fibreglass cast, I chose the second option and returned today…

According to the doctor, this particular injury is one usually sustained by young squaddies who’ve done too much marching - not applicable to me, of course! - but is one that also affects people, such as myself, on steroids.

I was, therefore, (if you’ll pardon the pun) bracing myself for four to six weeks in a cast; mercifully, however, the doctor decided that the trauma of coping with a cast and crutches as well as the problems of psoriatic arthritis was probably not worth any possible benefits and that, instead, I should keep it supported and wait for it (hopefully) to heal…

For the moment, I’m retaining the crutches to ease mobility and, if necessary, to brain anyone on a bus who looks as if they might be about to throw up!