Clumsiness

About a week ago at work, I was walking out to my car, and there were a bunch of people crowded around.

It turned out that one of our IT guys had fallen over the wire cable gate to our staff car park and was seriously injured.

Cristian is okay, he broke both (!!!) bones in his lower leg, and has had to have an operation, but work is being very understanding, and he's all health covered up. But he can't drive to work, and his wife doesn't have a license and they have a small child.

It made me think about all the terrible accidents I've had, and I've had many:.

• Dislocated my elbow joint. Elbow hung out of joint (causing excruciating pain) for about 8 hours in a Sydney hospital before they could operate on it. Did they knock me out when they were manipulating my joint back into place? No - they gave me a drug that gave me temporary amnesia, however, as I get older, I can remember more about this fantastic time, including a fat nurse sitting on my legs to stop me from trying to jump off the table and run away, and seeing my parents crying in the window to the observation room adjacent to the theatre.

• Swallowed a bobby pin. Another great time. Don't ask how I managed to swallow it, but apparently, as it can puncture the bowel, the bobby pin had to come out the same way it went in. I was knocked out for this operation, but they ripped the bobby pin back up sideways and scratched all down my oesophagus. I still can't eat very fast because of the scarring. The bobby pin in my stomach made for some very interesting xrays though.

• Ripped half of my big toe apart. At the Kalgoorlie town fair. Let's just say there was an incident with a dodgem car. My entire toe nail fell off and the nail bed was very damaged. Then the nurse put the wrong dressing on it and the wirey dressing had to be ripped off to where it had become embedded in the raw, tender skin underneath the nail. Took about a year to get back to normal.

• Broke my ankle. I was wearing high heels, and stepped down a 5cm high step at work and rolled my ankle. I had managed to convince my mother to let me drive to an adjoining town from Kalgoorlie (about 60km away) and stay there the night so I could attend a friends 18th (FREEDOM). So I was convinced my ankle was just sprained, I was fine, let me go already. My boss insisted on taking me to the hospital where it was revealed I'd broken the damn thing. No 18th for me. And as I'd recently got my P plates, even more painful was that there was no driving for me. And as I was doing a lot of house sitting at the time, I had to live back at home with the folks which meant complete and total freedom fail. Also, the hospital set the cast on my ankle wrong - so my foot was at an angle to my leg instead of 90degrees on. This meant it healed improperly. Now I'm like an old lady - my ankle can feel when there's rain coming. Also, as I was a contract worker, there wasn't even a workers comp payment for it - expensive medical bills meant having to go back to work the day after you've broken your ankle = super awesome times

And there's many more smaller ones. So there you go. I'm a clumsy clumsy girl. Touch wood the next few years are my non-clumsy years.

In the meantime, I'll keep hoping Cristian comes back to work so I can give him a big hug and tell him how much I hope his poor leg heals fast!