Enjoy the Trip (not)

I’ve never been particularly graceful. I did ballet and tap dancing as a child, but alas, I had all the footwork skills of a drunk centipede. As I got older I tried Zumba and aerobics. The women around me soon learned to keep a safe distance. So it wasn’t a great surprise when I managed to fall down the stairs this week.

I missed my footing because I had piled up a load of Amazon boxes at the bottom of the stairs. Damn you Amazon, and your one-click ordering.

As I bounced butt-first down the last three or four stairs, I had time to reflect that I had turned into my mother.

Mum came to stay for the Easter holidays. After precisely one day, she tripped and fell downstairs. I should point out, before you start questioning the safety of my staircase, it has not one but TWO handrails and is a perfectly normal set of steps. It’s just that my mum was doing what she always does – carrying books, glasses, cup of tea and a crossword puzzle as she headed to the kitchen. So she couldn’t save herself when she slipped, because her hands were full. It was not my stairs’ fault, I promise.

My poor mum broke her hip and spent Easter in hospital. This was possibly a more stressful experience for the hospital staff than my mum, who during her long medical career was a Midwife, Nurse, Ward Sister and Nursing Tutor. My mum knows hospitals like the back of her hand. She knows best practice, hygiene protocols, and ward systems. And boy, she wasn’t going to let these nurses take any shortcuts.

Mum was out of hospital within five days of her hip replacement. That has to be some kind of record. I’m sure it wasn’t because she told them all how to do their jobs. Well, probably not.

I should say here how amazing the British health service is. From the paramedics in the ambulance who took mum to hospital, to the admitting staff in A&E, to the orthopaedic doctor, to the ward nurses - yes, even the junior nurse who bore the brunt of mum’s wrath for suggesting she change the dressing on an open wound in a crowded ward and risk cross-contamination – they all do a fine job under difficult circumstances and with far fewer resources than they should have. No wonder Donald Trump keeps making jokes about buying it.

Luckily, I did not break my hip, though I do have a rather attractive bruise on my thigh and am now shuffling around like a poor imitation of Marty Feldman’s Igor. 

Note to self: stop ordering Amazon parcels. Or at least, stop piling them up at the bottom of the stairs.