One Friday night Carly dashes off. She cycles full pelter as she is late. She is off to friends for dinner, and they have kids so she mustn’t be late. She puts a few of her ’Carly does’ stories in her bag as this family are keen groupies of her written offerings. She feels that reading them out partly pays for her supper! She also puts in some Tradescantia plants and pots as a present. She just adores these “Wandering Jew” plants. She has her signature trademark pot. A slightly oversized food tin that she has protected with two coats of PVA glue. She tries hard to eat the contents but how much sorbet can you make from tinned jackfruit? Or humous from chickpeas? Sometimes she doesn’t even know what the contents are as they are from specialist shops which import them. Then she secretly throws them away. This was the case with two different jellies from China. Or maybe Korea? She just wants to use the tins as “bespoke” plant containers.
Anyway, it was getting dark as winter was fast approaching. Carly has her trusty pedal-assist electric bike. With this device she has to do some of the cycling, but it makes getting up hills much less unappealing. She ponders. She is cycling from low Highbury to high Highgate. Bizarre. Both have “high” in their names, but one is erroneously named High… and is low! How very strange.
Off she went. It was all going swimmingly until she decided she would overtake a very slow cyclist on a regular bike. Carly is very impatient and was already running behind schedule. So, she made a bid to overtake him. She did think a bit about the road layout, but clearly did not consider it properly. When you mount a pavement lip perpendicularly it is usually ok. But not if you try this whilst going parallel. It was dark so she didn’t really see the lip. Splat went Carly. It was all so very embarrassing. Especially as the bus passing her almost squashed her. The cyclist was super nice. He got Carly back on her feet and sorted out her bike. He insisted on cycling behind her until he was sure she was alright. When you are in your mid-50s falling over is really embarrassing. Oh, and painful. Lucky Carly was wearing her helmet as her head went crash too. And of course, she cried. She claimed that was an autonomic response to hitting her face. But really that is Carly. Always crying. And then because this man who she stupidly tried to overtake was being so nice, she cried even more.
Off Carly went to her friends. Late, but victorious. She was developing a cool black and purple right eye. She gave them their plants, read her stories with aplomb and ate a wonderful meal. She does wonder about her relationship with this family. They have been really wonderful and supportive over a most difficult time in her life. But things seem to be unlucky. Besides this bike accident which really wasn’t their fault, there was another time when they came round, used her hot tub and splashed so much Carly had to refill it. But being Carly, she got carried away with other things and left it for a few days before she remembered and went to turn off the faucet. Oh dear. It had completely soaked everything, and it cost a pretty penny to mend. Again, not really this family’s fault but still, mused Carly, a bit problematic, nonetheless. At least she positively influenced them to get a dog. But she must take some responsibility here. It was her dog that nipped one of their daughters when she was young and so she became canine-phobic.
A week later, sporting a wonderful bruised right eye, Carly went on her first date with David. She had sent him a photo beforehand and explained. She mused that she matched the wonderful green and purple hues of her favourite Tradescantia plant. They got on really well having a coffee in Costa. She felt very relaxed and laughed and cried with him. She mused that for him, beauty could not be skin deep, or he would be revulsed by her. This was clearly true, as they are still together many months on.
So, her bruised face healed but her arm still hurt three weeks later. She decided to investigate further. She had an Xray and an ultrasound of her shoulder. She knows how to utilise the system as she works in a hospital. After the Xray the radiologist, who knew Carly well, asked what she thought of the images. Carly brazenly answered that it looked fine to her. She couldn’t see anything. But she did attest to the fact that this isn’t in her area of expertise. Mostly she sees young people with anxiety masking as medically unexplained symptoms. He stifled a laugh. No, no he exclaimed. You have a comminuted fracture of the right humeral tuberosity. She looked at him like he was talking ancient Greek. Yes, she had been to medical school, but broken bones weren’t really in her lexicon any more. The shoulder ultrasound confirmed the joint was not involved. Phew! considered Carly. That meant arthritis later on in her dominant arm was less likely.
But there were some upsides. Carly is very competitive, and she is the first of her siblings to break a limb. Which is odd. One of her brothers played many hours of football. He seemed to be unable to score a goal without landing on the ground. It was part of his routine. That and being totally covered in grass stains at all times. The other brother was more memorable for being covered in shoe polish most of the time. He set up a business at school to polish shoes for charity. 5p for children’s shoes and 10p for adult ones. More memorable for looking like a chimney sweep at the end of the day, rather than making a lot of money.
So how did knowing she had broken her arm change things for Carly? Well not by very much. She had been at work and cycling for three weeks before she knew. It would be silly to use a sling now. The only tricky movement was turning the car steering wheel. So, she stuck to cycling until her bike was stolen – another saga for another story!
Carly gets to meet a physio - Katie, who gives her lots of appropriate exercises and encouragement. She also tells Carly that she needn’t be so harsh on herself as it takes a while for bones in older people to heal. Then Katie says she has been redeployed to work in intensive care (ITU) because the second Covid wave has just hit North London. So, the next time they meet is when they are coincidentally undertaking the same proning shift in ITU, where they are in full PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) with masks and goggles. You really have no idea who is on your team. Sometimes you can’t even work out their gender or what their normal day jobs are. They have to log roll patients every 12 hours from back to front and back again. It is all very organised, but it takes eight people to do this as the patients are really enormous.
Anyway, one of Carly’s roles is ’ball release person’. This is only when placing a male patient on his front. It reminds Carly of a hamster digging deep. Maybe more like a dog burying a bone. She has to separate the legs to release the testicles, so they aren’t squashed underneath the patient who isn’t awake. Carly enjoys doing this task and is a bit sad when her next patient is female. Just when she had found herself a unique role.
Over time Carly can use her broken are more and more. Only extending her arm above her head during the “goddess” yoga pose proves painful and problematic. Apart from wining the ‘Only Broken Bone Sibling Competition’ and having a few weeks free from driving it hasn’t really made much of a difference. But it has made for a good story line!
