Dear God...

fyds · September 24, 2007

On Saturday, the large, mad, morbidly obese and of limited mobility Mother in Law, against our advice (we said we'd do this sort of thing for her) went to Cribbs Causeway in Argos near Bristol to buy a new telly for her bedroom. Being the dopey accident-prone old fool she is, she tripped on a piece of raised pavement (so she says) and came down on her recently replaced knee with all of her 19 stone. It swelled up like a baloon.

Now - we've told her, whenever she has an accident or some sort of problem, make sure she phones us first so we know what's going on and can take her to/from hospital as necessary (three times she's ended up in hospital in Newport or Cardiff, with us only finding out via her concerned neighbours and having to sort things out to assist without notice for childcare etc.) .

Anyway, this time she does actually phone us, that her friend Ros is taking her to the cottage hospital. 'Good' says I 'Keep in touch and let us know what's going on etc'. 3 hours later, she phones again - now she's in Abergavenny hospital, waiting to be seen - the cottage hospital as usual being unable to offer anything more complex than aspirin and a cup of tea. 'Good' says I again and so forth.

Amazingly (if you'd met her you'd understand), her friend Ros stays with her and eventually brings her home after being seen at 2am this morning. Ros phones me to let me know they got back, heavy bruising to the knee, but no other serious damage.

'Why on earth did it take her so long to get seen at Abergavenny of all places - it's not the busiest hospital in the world, is it?' I say, slightly surprised at how long it has taken. In her valleys accent, Ros tells me 'They were understaffed as always, isn't it? And they had such trouble trying to help this poor young man who was screaming the place down he was in so much pain'. 'What was wrong with him?' I ask, thinking maybe some Saturday night fighting at the Colliers Arms to be the likely cause. She replied ' The charge nurse told me he had this coin operated jelly-bean dispenser stuck up his bottom and it took all three of the staff nurses to remove it'

WHAT!?!

New York Red · September 24, 2007