My son and I had planned a day out. Nothing extravagant, but a celebration. He’d just gotten the results back from his end-of-year university exams: a First. Not just that, but Firsts on his assessments too. Astounding. I wanted to celebrate him properly, so we made a little plan.

HOWEVER. The Universe – or more accurately, my son’s foot – had other ideas. Instead of a lovely celebratory day, we were thrown into the dystopian NHS experience that is the Minor Injuries Unit.

The Injury

The night before, my son got up excitedly to flip his chickie nuggies at the halfway point of cooking dinner. We were chatting about our plans the next day, both excited and in a great mood. But his foot had gone to sleep without him realising – a common hypermobility experience. When he stood up on that foot, he went over on his ankle hard, and we heard the worst noise I have ever heard.

I literally looked down at the floor for what he’d stepped on. It sounded EXACTLY like a plastic clothes hanger being stepped on: CRUNCH, then SNAP. The deafening sound hit us like a brick wall of doom. My son said it made his eyes go black for a second, like the sound travelled up through his body and reached his ears and eyes from the inside. When I realised the sound was his foot, not a broken Primark hanger, I felt sick. I can still hear it.

He couldn’t bear weight on it, and he was in so much pain. He elevated it while still eating his chicken nuggies. Because he has hypermobility, we figured maybe it was a bad subluxation – dislocating joints and popping them back in is just Tuesday in our house. I subluxed my own shoulder the day before lifting something and had to audibly pop it back in. But his foot? It had NEVER sounded like that before.

We decided to see how it was in the morning. Well, he decided to sleep on the decision while not sleeping on his foot, and we agreed that if he still couldn’t walk, we’d head to Minor Injuries.

The Next Morning

In the morning, he still couldn’t bear weight on it without really bad pain. I was really hoping it would be better or magically healed overnight like subluxations sometimes are. He couldn’t even bear to stand to make his own breakfast, so I made him a sandwich. After an hour of back-and-forth on whether we should go, we ordered a taxi. Because if it was broken, it could heal wrong and that would be awful. His ankles have always been extremely hypermobile and fragile – he even had a medical exemption from PE at school (one of the few perks of hypermobility). And let me just say: if you want kids interested in exercise, instead of getting notes to get them out of it, maybe make it more fun and less drop down and give me 20, soldier! No I don’t care that your knee is visibly dislocated! Give me 20 more for your attitude (my son actually dislocated his knee in PE once, before the exemption).

The taxi took longer to arrive than it takes to see a GP in this country, but eventually, we made it to the hospital.

The Waiting Room

The hospital had a new check-in system: an iPad. No human interaction. Just a robot quiz titled “Why Are You Here?” It asked questions like, “What room of your house did the injury occur in?” and offered bizarre multiple-choice options. There was no button for “I stood up from the sofa.” But there was a little animation asking you to “touch the body part that betrayed you.”

After checking in with RoboReceptionist, we sat down.

Knowing we’d be there for hours – possibly long enough to see another Prime Minister resign – my son and I coped the way we always do: with jokes. We laughed at the NHS posters.
“Have you fallen down 5 steps or 6? Because 6 isn’t our job. We only do 5 or less.” – Who counts? If I ever fall down steps I’m going to say 5.5 steps.
“We don’t treat anyone under age 12. Go somewhere else” – Why are there kids here then?
And the best: “We don’t deal with wounds not caused by accidents.” – I’m sorry, is this a hospital or a Choose Your Own Adventure novel?

We spent a full hour trying to decode that one. “I’m sorry, your wound lacks narrative cohesion. There needs to be lore.”

After I ran out of NHS posters to make fun of – and after I’d finished comparing the triage level poster to the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno – I turned to one of my other favourite hobbies: people watching

My Favourite People Watching Characters

I’ve always felt that hospital waiting rooms give you a good cross-section of your local humanity. A real slice of life. These are your neighbours, in all their chaotic, hilarious, kind, and wildly Welsh glory.

Let me introduce you to today’s waiting room characters.

ADHD Half-Naked Vape Man – He could NOT sit still for more than five minutes. Kept moving between chairs like he was playing strip musical chairs alone. He then played loud music, probably hoping everyone would stand up and start walking around the chairs. Then took chairs outside one by one, before returning to the waiting room wtihout them like he was now making the musical chairs level more difficult. When he returned he did whip out a vape pen and cover the entire waiting room in clouds though. When staff asked him to stop with this chaos, each time he replied, “I have ADHD though. It’s my ADHD” And listen – I get it. I REALLY get it. But this man was ALSO covered head-to-toe in tattoos. He has multiple times in life sat still long enough for full-body ink without removing the entire furniture of the tattoo parlour to the street.

The Teacher – Hurt herself really badly on a treadmill. She was marking homework while waiting for her X-ray. Very composed. Very chill. Making jokes about how exercise is deadly and not good for you at all, unless you want to spend your entire working day in A and E.

The Big Thumb Guy – Muscles for days. Hurt his thumb. Brought his entire family, his wife, kids, and even his mother. Moaned loudly to the entire waiting room as if he were dying. It was… a mild thumb injury.

The Multinational Mystery Mother – As soon as I saw her, I felt such good soul vibes. She was wearing navy, same as me, and she had that soft, kind energy. She was with her baby who had hurt her hand, and the way she comforted her was so gentle I could feel the love from where I sat. Then she spoke – and sounded like Astrid from Homeland. I had to say something.

I told her I loved her accent and asked where she was from. She said Germany. I told her I’d always wanted to go there. That’s true, but I didn’t tell her it was because I love the word Hauptbahnhof and I’m obsessed with Shiny Flakes on Netflix. Then she said, “Really?! But I live in Finland.” Which made her EVEN COOLER.

She told me how she loves ivy here. “It’s a houseplant where I’m from because it dies in winter. But here, it’s EVERYWHERE.” She’s right. English ivy is an invasive species here; it will swallow a house whole if you let it.

I’m still wondering how she ended up in this nothing city in Wales. She came all this way and got NHS dystopia instead of mountains. I had to talk to her. I needed her to know that even if Wales is struggling, Welsh people are warm. Even in minor injuries. Even when we’re worried about our sons foot.

Because that’s the Welsh way.

We ignore each other on the street, but if we’re next to each other in a bus stop, queue, or waiting room? We will absolutely talk. Happily. Kindly. Sometimes we end up knowing someone’s full life story, trauma included. I still don’t get the whole “trauma dumping” discourse. Have you considered that maybe some people just need to talk, and others just need to listen? Have you ever experienced the bonding that occurs with random strangers when they talk so openly to you?

One woman came up to someone else and said her friend died last week. No one was weird about it. Everyone was just human.

Finally, after making friends with everyone in the waiting room (and silently becoming mortal enemies with others), we were called for an X-ray. It all went smoothly aside from the fact my sons bones did look crowded, overlapping in places I don’t think they’re supposed to? But what do I know, I’m basing my knowledge from Chicago Med and Chicago Fire. We were then escorted back into the waiting room.

Corrupted Clippy Enters the Room

More hours passed. My son and I were overwhelmed. He kept saying he wanted to go home. I did too. But we’d come this far. We’d had the X-ray. It couldn’t be much longer. Right?

It was. IT WAS MUCH LONGER.

By 6pm, I’d only had black coffee all day. In recovery from anorexia, this is not ok. It is an action that summons Chaos Goblin who devours Biscoff like it’s life depends on it, and along with the Goblin, it’s friend mental hunger tags along. My brain was now utterly fixated on the vending machine like it was an altar shining it’s lights and Nature Valley bars on me. I caught myself STARING at it unconsciously, I only caught myself when someone thought I was staring at them. I was stuck in my own brain cataloguing every item.

I did bring a protein bar with me, but it took all my courage to eat it in front of a room full of people. I struggle eating in front of people at the best of times, with this audience? UGH. I finally did though – but it didn’t help. Of course it didn’t help, it was a drop in the bucket.

I started feeling weak, down and very irritated, a common side effect of not listening to chaos goblin. You cannot control extreme hunger, and you cannot ignore extreme hunger either, if you try to do either it just builds and gets more intense. It does NOT fade like regular hunger. It is not a wave, or a dimmer switch, it is a light switch, off or on. You CANNOT stop the thoughts of mental hunger either. Food is all you think about now, you CANNOT think of anything else, until you eat. It will drive you MAD.

It felt like torture. I felt guilty for thinking about food, recovery, and my ED when I was there for my son, but my brain wouldn’t shut up. I tried to silently suffer while waiting, and still be comforting to my son. I put my arm around him, and we just kept on keeping on.

The X-ray Results

Finally, we were called back.

The nurse practitioner pressed on his foot and said, “Wow, you’re really crunchy. Have you had an X-ray? Please tell me you’ve had one.”

We had.

She came back after going to view it and said, “I don’t think it’s broken. It looked different so I got someone else to look at it, but I don’t think it’s broken because it goes all the way across. Probably a bad sprain or ligament tear.”

What does that MEAN? All the way across? I still have no clue.

She then ended with, “I guess you’re just… crunchy.”

The second she said “crunchy,” my Chaos Goblin extreme hunger said, “DID SOMEONE SAY CRUNCHIE?!” in my head and I started craving that honeycomb chocolate bar immediately. I had visions of it, and of eating it. Anorexia recovery is WILD like that. How can my sons crunchy food remind me of CHOCOLATE? AND MAKE ME WANT TO EAT IT?

No crutches were given for some reason even though the care sheet said to stay off his foot. So I became his crutch. He leaned all his weight on me as we left, limping painfully. It reminded me of The Long Dark mission in the Astrid episode – carrying plane crash survivors back to safety. Only in our case, we were dodging the line of chairs ADHD Vape Man had built outside instead of Timberwolves.

Both of us eager to get outside, we hobbled along as fast as we could past the chairs into FREEDOM.

FREEDOM

We were finally outside THANK GOODNESS. Dopamine of FREEDOM hit HARD. With the energy of 12 espressos from our brains finally giving us the good stuff, we popped into Asda on the way home. We had no food in the house waiting for us at home and we were both so hungry. Today was supposed to be our special day out – we’d delayed grocery shopping because we planned to get special food after our celebration day. But of course none of that happened.

Asda has wheelchairs, so as soon as we got inside the store I asked the really nice Asda man for one and pushed my son around the shop like we were playing Mario Kart. I made broom-broom noises, and made EPIC drift around corner screeches, he giggled the whole time. It reminded me of pushing him in a stroller and I got all nostalgic. However, he did say he was concerned about my driving. Valid. I’ve seen me play GTA and Cyberpunk. It’s not safe. I will make even flat maps seem like Rainbow Road on Mario Kart and somehow end up under the map, even if the game wasn’t built like that.

We stocked up on emergency essentials to last until I could order some food or go and get some more. Bread, butter, potatoes, my salad stuff, some treats for my son and – yes – Crunchie bars. I told my son why I got them: “Ever since the nurse said your foot was crunchy, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Crunchies.”

He laughed so much.
We then, with our goodies, headed home.

Home Sweet Home

We were so relieved to be home and so relieved my sons foot wasn’t broken. Even though it wasn’t broken, it was worth knowing. We didn’t want to risk it healing wrong so we felt the weight of the anxiety about it leave us. I mothered my son so hard all night. I fetched him things. I asked if he wanted anything else like every 12 seconds.

I even bought him a Jellycat plush – a tin of sardines – from the new drop, because he’d mentioned wanting it and I needed him to know how proud I was of him. For university. For today. For just being him. And for him to have something special for now, knowing our special day will be postponed until he can walk again.

He said he loved me over and over. I made dinner and made my nightly salad bowl. Even bigger than usual, as if that could soak up some of the chaos. The Chaos Goblin did not return immediately, possibly out of shock. Possibly planning a 3am encore. But for now, it was quiet.

We watched EastEnders eating our dinner. Not because it was profound, but because it was quiet. Familiar. Ridiculous, yes – but less ridiculous than the day we’d just survived.

Chaos goblin will probably return later, or tomorrow, it usually does, but right now, I’m just going to relax as best I can while mothering my son and his crunchy foot, while eating a crunchie for dessert.