A Christmas Tale



 

This story goes back to 2001, when I was still pretty active.  I had been diagnosed with IBM the year before but was still walking reasonably well, without any stick, but falling down and struggling going up stairs, were becoming more of a problem.

 

The first part of this tale is set on Thursday the 20th December.  It was the night of the office party.

 

We finished work at 5.00 pm, and myself and a colleague, Stuart, made our way to a hotel just South of the River Thames, where we were staying the night.  We walked over Tower Bridge, and it was a bright and warm evening for December, and we enjoyed the view of the lights along the Thames.

 

Having got to our hotel, we showered and changed into our dinner jackets - hired for the night - before heading out and getting a taxi back to America Square, and meeting our colleagues for a couple of drinks before heading off to the party.

 

We eventually made our way down to the river, to St Katherine's Pier, where we caught the river taxi to take us along to the party venue at Canary Wharf.  I had to be helped down the steps onto the boat, and once we were aboard, we headed off, cocktails in hand.

 

We arrived at Canary Wharf Pier all to quickly and disembarked and headed toward the venue - I can't remember specifically the name of the venue.

 

When we arrived we were offered champagne, and there was much milling round talking, purchasing of raffle tickets, and generally getting into a party frame of mind.

 

After a short time we were called through, into the main hall, were the tables were set out for dinner.  After saying Grace, dinner was served.  I do remember that the food, as it usually was at the Christmas party, was very nice, but I can't remember what we ate.  Probably Turkey with all the trimmings.

 

After dinner, we would have had some speeches and then the raffle, which was then followed by a disco. 

 

Three things happened during the evening to this point.  Firstly, I got stuck on my chair, during dinner, as it was too low and didn't have any arms.  Fortunately, Stuart was near at hand and could help.

 

Secondly, the toilets were located up a very long flight of stairs, which meant I had to give myself plenty of time to get there, and had to very careful coming back down again.

 

And, thirdly, due to a rather over eager dance partner I had ended up falling, very slowly and gracefully, on the dance floor.  Again, fortunately Stuart and my boss, rushed to help me up.

 

The party finished at about 11.30 pm, and coaches were laid on to take people back to America Square, giving those going home, enough time to get to their trains.  As everyone clambered aboard the coaches, I realised that I wouldn't be able to make it up the steps onto the coach, so was preparing to find a taxi.  Stuart and another guy, Uche, saw me, stopped the coach before it drove off, came out and lifted me, literally, onto the coach.

 

Once back at America Square, and off the coach - thanks again to Stuart and Uche - we headed to a nightclub - I forget the name but evidently on a Sunday night it was a well known venue for a transvestite evening (why I remember that, I have no idea) - which was located under a building in Crosswall Street.

 

We spent a couple of hours here before deciding to head back to the hotel, just before 2.00 am. 

 

Now you might be thinking that a lot of alcohol had been consumed, and that this might account for what happened next.  However, although we had started drinking fairly early on in the evening, I had been pacing myself, as I was by this time well acquainted with the equation, alcohol + tiredness = falling down + painful injury.

 

There wasn't a taxi about in America Square so we stated to head towards Tower Bridge to start walking, and could then flag down a cab, if one came along.  As we got round the corner, into The Minories, a cab came towards us, and Stuart stuck out his hand and ran towards it.  Without thinking, and this may have been where alcohol did have an influence, I started to follow Stuart, and started to run.  It only took a couple of paces before I realised that this was a very bad idea.  I couldn't stop myself and instantly knew this was only going to end with me hitting the pavement.  Forewarned, I managed to control my fall, so I thought, to minimise the damage.

 

The cab driver, who had by this point pulled up at the kerb,  took one look at my dying swan impression, and said, "I'm not taking him, he's pissed," and promptly drove off.

 

Stuart, once again, helped me up.  I had grazed my hands, trying to break the fall, and my right knee felt a little stiff, but we started to walk, until another cab came along.  This stopped, we got in - without any drama - and got back to the hotel.

 

When we got back to the room and I started to take my suit off, I noticed that my knee was bleeding, but it didn't feel like much, so I grabbed a towel, wrapped it round my knee and fell into bed, and was out like a light.

 

About 7.00 am the following morning, I woke up and decided I needed to get up and get ready to go  to the office for work.  I pulled back the bedding, and it became obvious that during the night I must have been moving about a lot, as the towel had come off my knee.  The bed looked as if someone had been murdered in it.  There was blood everywhere.

 

I quickly sat up on the side of the bed to look at my knee.  What I had thought was only a minor cut the night before, turned out to be a very deep slash across the knee, where you could almost see the knee joint.

 

I quickly washed, and put on my clothes.  I woke Stuart, and told him what had happened, and that I needed to go to hospital to get my knee looked at. 

 

As is typical, when you really desperately need a taxi, there's never one around.  I ended up hobbling to Guy's and St Thomas Hospital, near London Bridge, and into the A&E department.  Fortunately at that time in the morning it was empty, and I was seen straight away.

 

The nurses were fantastic, and we had a great laugh at my expense.  I was hungry, tired and dehydrated, and the kept bringing me cups of water, but I couldn't have food in case they needed to do anything, depending on how bad my injury was.  I was sent off to have an x-ray, and wandered through the hospital, without any trousers on, with a badly cut and bleeding knee.  I must have looked a right mess, but I refused to have a porter push me in a wheelchair.

 

Anyway, the x-ray was fine.  It was just a very deep cut, and no damage to any bones or ligaments.

 

The nurses cleaned up the cut, and after a local anaesthetic, put in about 8 to 10 stitches, before putting on a dressing.  After thanking the nurses, I left the hospital and made my way to the office.

 

By the time I got into work, word had spread that I had badly injured myself, but I laughed this off by saying, that I must have had the best time of anyone at the party, because I was the only one that ended up in casualty!

 

After buying bacon sandwiches for my team, and a cup of coffee, I started to feel more normal.  However by mid-afternoon the pain in my knee was becoming unbearable. so I went home early to get some pain killers and hopefully sleep it off.

 

When I took the dinner suit back to the hire shop, the assistant was horrified to see the rip in the knee of the trousers and the blood coating the inside on the leg.  As he was just starting to think about charging me for the suit, I was happy to wave my receipt at him, which showed that I had purchased the damage waiver.

 

Well, you might be thinking that this tale is now complete, and that it was a pretty painful story.  But there is more to come.

 

Twas the night before Christmas.....

 

Yes it was Christmas Eve and I was at my mother house outside of Dorchester, where I was spending Christmas.  We had just had dinner and after clearing up, were just settling down to a quiet evening.

 

I needed to go to the toilet, which meant going upstairs, to the bathroom.  My knee was feeling much better, although still quiet stiff, but I was having some difficulty getting up the stairs.

 

As I got to the top step, where you need to make the transition from the stair to the landing, and where the hand rail runs out, I caught my foot on the final step and fell down.  In falling I slipped down a couple of steps, bending my right leg back underneath me.  I didn't need to look to know I had done something bad, the pain was telling me all I needed to know.

 

After being helped up, and going to the toilet, I took off my trousers, to see that in bending my knee back underneath me, I had managed to rip out all of the stitches, and open up the wound again.

 

I put on a pair of shorts, to prevent anymore blood getting on my trousers, and then drove into Dorchester, to the A&E department at the local hospital.  Almost anywhere else in the country, at about 8.00 pm on Christmas Eve, the local A&E department would be rammed full of unfortunate cases of Christmas calamity.  Fortunately for me, this one was virtually empty.

 

I was seen almost straight away by a pleasant young doctor, who took my details, and my medical history, and then looked at my knee.  I told him what had happened previously, and how it had been stitched up, and then about this evenings falling down.

 

He was very nice about everything, and took great trouble to clean the wound out, and to examine the knee to ensure that I hadn't caused any fresh damage in my fall.

 

He said that he would put in a set of deep stitches, right inside the joint, to hold the knee together below the surface of the skin, which should make for a stronger repair.  Then he would put in between 10 to 12 stitches on the surface, but as I had ripped the skin when the other stitches had come out, these would need to be set back quite a bit from the edge of the wound and would need to go through quite a bit of flesh, in order that they were secure.

 

This all sounded very sensible. 

Then came the kicker.

 

Because I had only had anaesthetic in the knee a few days before, he wasn't happy to give another shot.  This meant that he would need to do all of these new stitches without any anaesthetic!

 

If this had been one of those great old cowboy films, with John Wayne, someone would have produced a wooden spoon or piece of wood, and after giving me a good slug of whisky, I'd have been told to bite down hard, whilst the camera panned away to the sound of my muffled screams.

 

However, I was lying on the hospital bed, gripping the sides, and desperately trying not to swear at the doctor, every time he put the needle into my knee.  It seemed to take forever.  We did stop occasionally, while he asked me how I was doing, and I tried very hard to keep my replies polite.

 

Eventually, he finished, after what seemed like hours, and probably was hours.  The knee was more painful than ever, and looked a right mess with the damage from the ripped out stitches, and the newly applied stitches.

 

After putting on a dressing, the doctor went to look for a crutch.  He came back, but could find one, so I thanked him for his great needlework, wished him a happy Christmas, and promised not to come back.

 

I spent most of Christmas Day taking pain killers.

 

So that's my Christmas Tale.  I sincerely hope that none of you go through, or have ever gone through, something like this.

 

All that's left is for me to wish you all a very happy Christmas and all the best for the New Year.  Please be safe, be warm and healthy,