Who is coughing?

Beautiful sunshine rays - it was really foggy out on the roads though

Small and I spent our morning at the hospital. We had a 9:45 appointment and got there in plenty of time (had I known the car park charges were going to be as high as $16, I might have gone in later). It seems the hospital has been refurbished and is going through some changes. First we had to queue to register, make sure all our information was correct and get Small a hospital band. One the questions was "do you have a cough or a fever". Why is it that as soon as someone asks you if you have a cough (even if you don't have one) you start coughing. At one point I had a really tickly cough and I was so embarrassed, I thought they were going to chuck me out.

Next we went into a waiting room. Our appointment was in plastics which I am still confused about. Anyway, we saw a young doctor who laughed when Small said he hit his finger whilst playing American Football. It is FOOTBALL here and HOCKEY. Saying Amercian football and Ice Hockey is sure way of letting people know you are not a Canadian. Almost as bad as taking photos of black squirrels! So the doctor told us that no surgery was needed (thank goodness for that, it hadn't even occurred to me that there might be some). It was a clean fracture but needed to have a splint made which he has to wear for four weeks, day and night! This one though is movable and cleanable though he still has to be very careful. She also said no sports for four weeks which is a shame because his basketball starts next week and he has a football trial on Sunday.

We saw an Occupational Therapist next who made a splint for Small using some mouldable plastic and lots of Velcro (of which he could choose the colour - he chose blue and I said it looked like Leicester City colours. He decided it was more like the Blue Jays). The OT asked where we were from and said she was visiting England with a choir she is in. She said she knew that Leicestershire was in the South. I put her right and she looked confused so I told her if she looked at the map and included Scotland, then Leicestershire wpuld look like it was in the south. She was going to study her map tonight. She was very nice but did ask if we could pay for the splint before she started her work. I asked her what happened to people who had broken limbs but couldn't afford the casts etc. Apparently there are cheaper versions for people who can't pay. It is a completely different system to what we are used to. I know I have seen in the Doctors Waiting rooms, lists of things like X-rays, plasters casts etc and the prices next to them. One thing that is good here is that Small had to wait for a week with a tiny little splint on his finger before getting a proper one made. At first I thought this was strange but Huffle mentioned that it gave time for the swelling to go down. That makes sense. Once he was all splinted and we got another appointment for four weeks for another X-Ray we left for school.

Despite the fact Small had written in his agenda that he was at the hospital today, and told his teacher yesterday and I told his teacher last week, the Secretary still called home and asked where he was. In a way, that's reassuring as there is no way he would be able to skip school or go missing without us knowing before 9am!

I had a quick lunch with Huffle and then spent 45 infuriating minutes in traffic jams on my way to meet Suffolk at Costco. We had a good shop and I came home and put it away before the boys got home. Both had had a good day with no incidents. BullyBoy is back in the playground but didn't bother Smallest.

We heard from Grandma and Grandad before they left for their London overnight hotel and again when they were at the hotel. Once again, Smallest has ignored all comments and references about them being here tomorrow and suddenly got excited when he talked how quick they would be here.

 

 

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