Buckling

Dot writes: things I’ve learnt over the last few weeks:

1. Apparently there’s a kind of broken bone children can get that isn’t really broken, but rather bent. Their soft bones can deform under pressure where an adult’s would just split. It’s called a buckle fracture. In the course of a surprisingly efficient visit to A & E on Monday 1st September (triage nurse, doctor, x-ray, doctor again, application of back-slab cast, and visit to physio all in 2 and a half hours) I was told that Hugh had one of these. He was given a sweet little zimmer frame and an appointment at the fracture clinic for the following week.

2. It’s amazing how many people have stories of having told their children off for moaning and made them go for walks and things when they actually had broken bones.

3. Having a child who can’t walk any distance makes it even harder to solve a giant childcare crisis, because you can no longer fall back on arranging for them to be picked up by people from the after school place and walk back to it, supposing the after school place would return your calls.

4. However, even buckle fractures can usually be traced to a memorable event. Waking up with a sore foot and developing a limp that turns to a hop is not the way it usually goes. Also, A & E doctors sometimes get over-excited. The specialist we saw on Monday 8th cut the dressing off Hugh’s ankle and sent him off home with one bare foot, telling us that his ankle wasn’t broken at all, and we could return the zimmer frame when we got the chance. (Needless to say it’s still in the boot.)

5. It is possible to recruit a new au pair and have her move in within a week. She’s from Valencia. She’s great. (Though if it had been that easy when I was trying to recruit an au pair in August there would have been no giant childcare crisis.)

6. However, I still feel massively stressed because term is heading towards us like a train and, frankly, the last few weeks have been a bit of a disaster work-wise. Next summer the arrangements need to be simpler.

I’ve just learned another new thing: if you do a google image search for ‘child zimmer frame’, after a bit you get a picture of Bob Dylan. I wonder why?