Stairway to A&E

Thanks to the global pandemic, we live by one rule – stay at home and watch Netflix (in your pj’s and eat all the snacks).

So it goes without saying that we shouldn’t put ourselves in situations where we might need to go to hospital. To be fair, Covid or no Covid, that’s quite a good motto to live by anyway.

Unfortunately for me, that memo didn’t reach my clumsy feet which on Wednesday had me fall down the stairs, faint and crack my knee open. Lovely.

Some may say it was an elaborate attempt to get out of a work Teams call. I’m sticking with the story that it was an accident (in case my manager reads this).

The whole event happened thanks to the arrival of my partner’s birthday parcel (a present which is clearly cursed and one which my partner will be forced to love, even if he hates it, given that I nearly died in the process of retrieving it).

Otherwise engaged on a Zoom call, my partner wasn’t able to answer the door but thanks to my clumsiness everyone witnessed my sorry attempt at trying to.

Apparently causing drama on a Zoom call wasn’t good enough for me, over at A&E I proceeded to faint on an innocent nurse (oh dear, oh dear).

Presumably the diva in me felt that the hospital staff had nothing better to do that day (such as dealing with a deadly virus).

Having apologised for being ‘the clumsiest person on the planet’ the nurses asked me some routine questions, including “what did you have for breakfast?”.

Most Instagram folk would answer with ‘poached eggs and avocado’ or ‘kale smoothie with pond sludge’.

Not me. No. At the age of 29 I took the privilege of replying with (while crying) “chocolate Ready Brek with Frosties on top” (sobs loudly*).

Perhaps the most embarrassing part of the whole saga was that I’d put a Claudia Winkleman amount of eyeliner on that day. I looked like a sorry-for-itself panda being paraded around.

Then came the least fun game that ever existed – ‘what’s a genuine injury and what’s smudged eyeliner?’ something the nurses were forced to join in with.

The long and short of it is, after some stitches, I got to keep my knee (wahoo). But sadly for my partner, he will have to do the dog walking for a while as I laze around on the sofa (what a shame).

The real story is that the nurses at the NHS did an amazing job of looking after me, given ‘everything that’s going on’ *round of applause please*.

Now if you don’t mind me, I’m off to wrap myself in bubble wrap.