Fracture

On Sunday morning 2nd March , I went to the local accident and emergency department of my local hospital, luckily it is a mere walking distance from here where I live.

I fell off a small step ladder no more than four foot (1.3m approx) from the ground , five days ago. I was installing a smoke detector in my younger son's room. He is 18 and so much like me , he smokes cigarettes and is fascinated and concerned about politics. So for the first reason , a smoke alarm was a must . For the second reason , well could be the subversive element in both of us that keeps us determined to defy a government's will .A government so fragmented in its ideology and behaviour that it is Fractured ; broken in the middle between its pretence to morals and the immorality of its actions. An authority hell bent on forcing us to stop the habit for which the smoke alarm is yet another ominous deadly reminder of .Yet this fractured government that is so benevolent it insists on protecting , not just us miserable smokers but anyone who comes several metres towards us within an enclosed public space and now even in open areas. The same government that does not think twice about waging illegal, immoral and extremely hazardous wars that are deadly to our own citizens , not to mention those lesser mortals, the inhabitants of wherever the latest planned invasions maybe.Yes it protects these people by going to war and forcing democracy on them by killing.

Yes smoking is bad, a cigarette apparently is more dangerous and morally inferior to bombing and smoking out , horrifically maiming and killing innocent people in their own land.
So in the process of successfully installing the smoke alarm as an act of organised resistance ,suddenly ,and almost as if being punished by the Gods , I fell .I landed on the side of my right foot with all my weight and felt the thud, it crossed my mind , as health care 'professional' , qualified , registered nurse and up to date first aid practitioner , that I could have broken a bone, possibly a metatarsal , remember that one David Bekham during a world cup game ? where the media wheeled on various professors of medicine to educate us heathen on the anatomy of a foot and how a where a bone can be fractured? I even knew the procedure of what to do i.e as my instructor once told me ' If in doubt ship'em out '(to accident and emergency hospital) as it is not easily identified whether the accident has resulted in a sprain or an actual fracture . I even knew that the immediate procedure use if it was a strain or sprain , which I hoped it was ,before 'shipping out ' to accident and emergency was the 'RICE ' routine: rest , ice ( apply ice to wound) , compress , and elevate .


Yet what did I do? nothing . I carried on as normal hoping that the pain would eventually subside and that the swelling would heal by itself. I carried on like this since last Tuesday , I cycled to work , drove a car, walked the dog , did my exercise all with carefully placing my weight on my heal or ball , near the toe, from time to time, accidentally bearing the weight on the injured part with sudden in take of breath. I got used to limping but after four days the damned pain wasn't going anywhere and bruising got worse, I began to fear that it could be broken , I feared the obvious , considering the force of the impact and my maturing years. Yet I kept on in denial for so long ,doing exercise with dumbbells and hopping on my feet, shadow boxing.


So on the preceding Saturday , I made the decision and after three hours at the hospital , mostly waiting , I was told by doctor on duty after he examined the X Ray , that 'You have been walking on a broken foot for five days' It was a 'spiral ' fracture of the distal metatarsal . And now I have one foot in plaster.
Now I have been told I have to have some time off work, I was so immersed in the stream of things at work that I found it difficult to accept this at first , I had the feeling that the appointments I had made and the vulnerable people that I work with , all had some 'dependency ' on my being there , a vain arrogant belief that the whole process of work could not proceed without me . A belief or almost smug satisfaction that people with mental health problems whom I closely work
with , get used to my services in particular and could not well manage without me :What nonsense!

So I had to go into the fracture clinic the next day and as the technician in hospital the next day told me as he was applying a heavier more sturdy coat of plaster on the foot :' Work will always be there , we won't .' And with this sage's advice I searched for the doctor on duty to write me a certificate of sickness.
'Three weeks enough?' he signed , and bang ,with crutches , I merrily hopped off home.

Now happiness is often touched upon in circumstances like this , I often question this concept of happiness and the more I do the less I get to understand the meaning of happiness.

I am not in pain and the injury is minor with no real nasty consequences, I have been given the 'sick role 'to play and can stay off work for a minimum of three weeks if I wish. So having informed my employers about this , I am now legitimately 'off sick ' . I now have all this free time to do as I which and so many t hings that I am in the middle of doing .

Yet this break , this 'fracture' of my normal , fast paced daily routine carried out in a frenzy has stopped .I have had at least some time to reflect . And now at last I have the time to do , at least for a period of two or three weeks , as I please. I should be happy.To not work, is one of the things I always thought would make me happy . But no, so far I have wasted time, I have slept long hours, read a little listened to the radio and the en slept again.So I don't really feel happy , this break has slowed me down and given me a listless feeling as if I should be doing something better but not having the motivation or usual mobility to do so.

I remember having an elbow injury about twenty years or so ago, I was in a state of panic pondering if I would be able to move my elbow again as it became totally immobilised for a few weeks. This time ,I don't have that fear as I still walk around to a degree. But that fear I had with the elbow injury , made me say to myself ,I know what happiness is! If I can be sure that my elbow becomes 'normal' again , I will be happy , all I want to make me happy is to know that I am physically fit and healthy.Definition of happiness equals ; my elbow making a full recovery .

This played on my mind for weeks until eventually my elbow injury eventually healed and guess what ? I had got over the feeling of what happiness really was .But for that short period where my whole arm was not moving and tied up in a sling, I honestly felt that I knew what happiness was, it was the hope that I would be back to normal and able to move my arm, I did not want anything else and that would make me happy I thought . But it was not true , it lasted for a few hours once I recovered. Another thing about happiness is when seeing another much more unfortunate individual and making oneself feel 'happier ' in comparison. On the occasion of the elbow injury , I remember seeing a a man in the accident and emergency department without a hand,he must have lost it in an accident. And shamefully , I consoled my self by comparing the triviality of my injury with his. This made me 'happy' So my happiness , is created by the misfortunes of others? Very strange , and even cruel ,that in many of us there is this need or urge to almost celebrate others' misfortune when it can affirm the relative fortune that we have and may not have had the sense to appreciate .

Very strange : I can be happy because somebody Else's circumstances are so wretched that had I shared them , then I would have reason to be unhappy ,hence I can make my self 'happy', i.e My happiness is commensurate to the other's unhappiness.
Surely this is a shallow happiness ,as is the other type , the short feeling of relief when realising that I can move my elbow.

Now this time, How did happiness or one's notion of it play its role? I don't know , maybe this time , I did not feel so demoralised that I count the seconds for my cast to be removed so that I can walk normally again , I have the belief that this will happen. Also I did not take satisfaction in looking at the less fortunate, maybe I have matured .

Yet the break from work has not made as happy as I believed ,I am after all genuinely unable to work, but able to do a few things or activities as hobbies that I don't get the time for normally .Yet I have lost most of my motivation and feel almost redundant, never thought I would.Yes this fracture of , busy working life and housebound rest and convalescence/idleness has made me think that happiness is not easy to define .Is it momentary bliss? , ephemeral and not lasting therefore impermanent and unreal? Or is something that can only be assessed at the end of one's life ?when things can be seen in perspective. If so it has already fallen into the past any way ,and no longer present or real .
Neither should Happiness be defined by what seems to be the misfortune and unhappiness of others. More importantly it appears that any preconceived idea of what happiness is ,becomes meaningless, and that when the circumstances imagined arrive to some extent , we can be left wondering where the next fixed ,false notion of happiness will arrive.

This break of the metatarsal seems to be giving me a very long and unproductive fracture of normal everyday life, and in doing so I am beginning to think maybe I was 'happy' before the break , with my mundane, anonymous , tedious life of accepted routine, although I know that I won't really be happy when all returns back to normal. This dilemma of the 'Fracture ' somehow cannot really go away .