Day by Day

Something weird is happening... by body has become so efficient that, despite the fact I'm ill, my body is refusing to deal with more than one symptom at a time. This has resulted in me having a different flu like symptom every day for the past week. It's like a game of Pokemon except more fun, which is to say it fucking sucks.

I don't get ill very often... I think it's the result of having a father who is fairly unsympathetic to all forms of ailment unless something has actually fallen off your body. With my Dad, you could tell him your leg had come off and he'd ask why that mattered when you had a perfectly good other leg and two arms to carry it with in case you needed it.

He's a lovely man, but he's hardy. My father is a Scot, raised in South Africa... an interesting pedigree that leaves you defiantly stingy about your racism. It's not the cuddliest of breeds though. For that I guess you might want a small Welsh Dad or perhaps a Swiss one. Certainly, I adore mine, but it's best not to cry too often or he looks a bit panicked and turns the television up.

An example of my father's lack of patience for human frailty is a football game he once played. Dad's a keen 5-a-sider and so when he disappeared out one night to play 5 a side football we thought nothing of it.

About 9:30pm we heard quite a lot of laughter and commotion at the front door, were a little confused but when to see what was going on. We were greeted with the sight of my father, being pushed up the garden path in a wheel barrow by 3 of his friends... he seemed merry enough and we asked him what had happened.

"We were playing football and someone ran into me. I've hurt my knee a bit. It's just twisted."

"So, why are you in a wheelbarrow?"

"Er, I can't put any weight on it. I didn't move see when he ran into me so I absorbed a bit of force and it's just pushed my knee out a bit. It's just a bit tight. It'll be alright."

We thanked his friends profusely, put the wheelbarrow in the back garden and moved Dad to the sofa where he said he might have a paracetamol if the pain increased but he'd just have a sit down for while.

When it came to bed time he declared that it had stiffened slightly so he might sleep on the sofa tonight and not push it to get up the stairs. We didn't complain - no one wanted to be on the bottom end of the dead lift.

By the next morning my mother was sufficiently worried enough to have convinced him that maybe two paracetamol and a trip to the hospital might be a good idea. We were all worried when he actually agreed.

The Doctor scanned his twisted knee and came back with the following prognosis:

He has snapped his thigh bone clean in half.

SNAPPED HIS THIGH BONE CLEAN IN HALF.

Did you hear that? The man snapped his thigh bone clean in half and then came home in a wheel chair and decided not to go to hospital for about 16 hours because he assumed he had just twisted his knee.

Do you have any idea what it's like to try and explain to that man you don't really want to do something because you've got tummy ache? Unless someone has disembowelled you and there isn't even a handy carrier bag around to keep the entrails in, chances are you're going to have to get on with whatever it is he wants doing.

For this reason, I have called home to just inform them that I have the weirdest elongated cold in the world because imagine he's already had pneumonia twice today and beaten it off by looking at an apple.