A Rare Power-Up

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Took my sister to get her cast upgraded yesterday. So far she’s been making do with a splint—a plastery chunk under an ace bandage and a bunch of athletic tape. Which was all fine and dandy, but lacked a certain je ne sais quoi, which in this case means “giant cybertronic anime-character boot.” The doctors had to correct that.

So first we went into the Chamber Of Getting Your Cast Removed. There was a nice lady in the next berth over, patiently waiting to get her dainty wrist cast off. She smiled slightly at my sister and me as we came in, then watched uncertainly as a nurse wrestled with the splint.

NURSE: Sometimes—oof!—these come right—ARGH—off, and other times …
MY SISTER: THIS IS MY PAIN FACE.
NURSE: How did you (dammit!) break your ankle?
MY SISTER: I was riding my bike, and OH GOD OW.
ME: You know, that actually works as part of the story and an interjection of intense pain!
NURSE: *standing up* I’m gonna get the saw.

While she was hunting that down, a familiar voice in the hallway made me glance up. There was Dad, just wrapping up his semimonthly meeting with the ortho guys where they get together and discuss all possible senses of the phrase “pain in the ass.”

ME: Hi, Dad!
NURSES and DOCTORS: Oh, this is your dad? Blah blah nice to meet you my name is Dr. Hammersmash and this is Nurse Blackandecker blah blah …
MY SISTER: … Ow?
EVERYONE: How did this happen?
MY SISTER: I don’t care anymore.
NURSE: Right, yes, saw.
X-RAY TECH: Let me do that, all for my good buddy, your dad.

The X-ray guy found the saw—a little round one that sounded like a particularly angry dentist’s drill.

X-RAY GUY: I’m going in! Cover me!
NURSES: We got your back!
SAW: GREEEEAAAARRR
DAD and the OTHER DOCTORS: Blah blah medical blah blah important doctors blah blah how did it happen?
MY SISTER: OW GODDAMN
NICE LADY WITH THE WRIST CAST: *look of panic-stricken fight-or-flight*
MY SISTER’S CAST: BLAM
X-RAY GUY: Ta-da!
EVERYONE: HOORAY!
*Pythonesque pause*
SOME DOCTOR: So.
DAD: Yes.
MY SISTER: Ow.
X-RAY GUY: X-rays?
DOCTORS: X-rays!
DAD: X-rays!
NURSE: X-rays!
MY SISTER: X-OHGODOW-rays!

So they all trooped off to X-ray her. They gestured to me to come along.

I looked at the traumatized lady with the broken wrist. She was the only other person left in the room.

ME: … Anyway, how are you?

Fortunately, a nurse came back a moment later, so I could leave without feeling like I was abandoning the nice lady to a dark pit of bleak, lonely despair. My sister got her x-rays and had her stitches removed from the incision. Then they fitted her with a Walking Boot You Are Not Supposed To Walk In.

NURSE: How’s that?
MY SISTER: It’s … a little bit … big?
NURSE: It might be somewhat … large … yes …
ME: Oh, for crying out loud. It’s Kuribo’s Shoe.

They sent her home with it, but the darn thing was too big, and anyway it’s hard to stomp spinies when you aren’t supposed to put weight on your boot that was made for walking. So she went back today and got the delicate, ladies’ model of GIANT BOOT. She says it feels much less unmanageable, which is good, because she’s got to have it on for four weeks.

Though I still think we should’ve kept the first one. You never know when you’re going to have to punt a spiny, after all.

Comments

[chaosvizier.livejournal.com]

So it's entirely possible and, in fact, quite truthful that I read the first sentence as "Took my sister to get her cat upgraded yesterday" and I might have spent a bit too much time wondering how a cat upgrade would work, exactly. Do you take a plain, generic breed of cat and upgrade it to a cooler high-end breed? Do you take an old broken beat-up cat and upgrade to a younger model? Or do you go in with the latest in cybernetic technology and create The Six Million Dollar Cat? *dun dun dun daaaaaaa, da da da da da dun dun da daaaaaaa* Smarter. Stronger. Faster. We have the technology. We can rebuild him.

Also, sorry about your sister's pain, but really, my imagination just went with it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think our cat has been steadily getting downgraded. She never USED to smell like skunk.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I also read this. It's 5 minutes to quitting time

[broken-moons.livejournal.com]

OW. I feel for your sister and the little old lady who had to witness all that. How does that even work, getting a walking boot you're not supposed to walk in?

I love how they all got excited over X-rays, though, even your sister. :D

MY SISTER: I don’t care anymore.
Oh, this reminds me of when I had appendicitis - I was poked by two different doctors and three interns, and that was at 2 am, four hours after my symptoms first started, a trip to my doctor's weekend/night shift desk, a second trip to the hospital's emergency room in a taxi without having cash on us so my husband had to get the driver to stop at an atm to get money, and waiting in the ER for more than an hour, and the end results of their examinations were that I didn't scream enough when they, well, examined me. Of course I bloody didn't, it was 2 hours past my normal bedtime, on a week day, and I'd been in pain for hours. I had no energy left to care enough about the pain to scream. I just wanted them to get the damn thing out and stop poking me.

Of course, the next morning, around the time my surgery was scheduled, a sixth doctor showed up who decided we could wait until the evening. My husband filed a complaint with the hospital for the entire debacle. They never got back to us.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Ah, hospitals. They are a clusterfuck. I often wonder if their delaying tactics are designed to test your sincerity. If you get bored and go home, you didn't really need to be there anyway.

The lady was not terribly old--it actually turned out she had worked at a clothing store with me a few years ago, which we figured out after giving a lot of covert, calculating glances at each other trying to work out why the other seemed so darn familiar. It was only when I'd mentally re-dressed her in that store's merchandise that I recognized her.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Running into people out of context is weird. I saw one of the Tellers from my Credit Union walking on the sidewalk and totally failed to recognize her until she waved.

Glad to hear your sister's foot is on the mend!

[friendoffrogs13.livejournal.com]

Ow at getting the cast removed. It somewhat reminds me of my last MRI when the tech couldn't get the contrast needle in so had to get the nurse. It's really not comforting to hear the nurse comment when that tech needs help, it's going to be a difficult patient to get the contrast in.

I have also been way too amused at thinking of the walking boot as Kuribo's shoe.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

They need to bring back Kuribo's Shoe. Also the Tanuki Suit and the Murder Everything Suit Hammer Bros. Suit.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

God dammit, why won't it let me use my NES cartridge icon?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

LJ is editorializing?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I understand they really want to but are having a hard time figuring out how to integrate it into the new gameplay. At least the Shoe. I'm not sure if they're working as hard on the about the HELL YEAH HAMMERTIME Suit, but I will fully support whatever they come up with.