How Not to Cure a Broken Foot

I’ve been to have my foot scanned.

They were looking for something starting with a neur.

You may remember the age-old story of my purple foot, what not to do in the sauna and why metatarsal slippers are sexy. This is the continuation.

This is what happened:

After many years of waiting I arrived at the hospital.
After not so long of waiting I was ushered into the ultrasound room.
The ultrasound operative was not there but there was a kindly sort of nurse sort of woman who was folding pieces of paper towel in two. An important job I could see.

We had an in-depth conversation about ultrasound which mostly consisted of reminiscing about the days of pre-natal examinations and the pain of the full bladders. I was glad it was only my foot and not my foetus that was being ultrasounded considering the fact that the ultrasound operative was still AWOL and if I had been in a pre-natal pre-urinatal state during such a wait I would have been very much not pissing myself. As was required.

We continued to reminisce about daughters, universities, and the nature of holidays. We wiled away the time in that sort of way that hospital time works. Finally much to my excitement the ultrasound operative arrived. She was wearing a stripy jumper.

Dutifully she put the goo on my foot. Painfully (to me) (she didn’t appear to be in pain but on the other hand who am I to judge?) (her previous absence may, for all I know, have been to do with pain) (or maybe lunch) (which we hope isn’t the same at all) she applied her ultrasoundy thingy to my foot. The left. It’s always been the left.

She said that my foot was very easy to scan due to its slender nature. Was that a compliment? I took it as one. And compliments to a minor degree can assuage pain. To a minor degree. She reported that if there was a thing beginning with a neur then she would find it due to the apparent transparency of my foot. In ultrasound terms.

It looked remarkably like an alien landscape. Much as it feels really.

She didn’t find the thing beginning with a neur. But she did find an anomaly. Hope was on the horizon.

In a moment of technical wizardry, or witchery, (if that’s the feminine equivalent) she compared the ultrasound to the previously achieved x-rays.

It turns out I had broken my foot some time in the past.