Broken bones and muscle memory

The last two months, life has been getting in the way of blogging. Not in a good way. First my mother died, and then was stress about fighting fees from her rest home and other financial issues, and now, after a moment's inattention at the top of some stairs, I've had surgery, ankle in a cast, and trying to learn to be comfortable on crutches. I've gone into more detail here on A Separate Life.

I had a few No Kidding thoughts. One was that I'd be completely helpless without my husband. Family and friends have children who are either adults or are old enough to be able to help. If I was single, I  simply wouldn't be able to live in this house. 

I have to give myself injections every evening, to avoid blood clots for the six weeks I will have my cast. The nurses were worried about me doing this myself. "No problem," I said. "I've done IVF." My first injection was last night. It's like riding a bike. It came automatically.

In X Ray, they still ask if there's any chance I'm pregnant. Apparently they are required to ask female patients up to 60 years old. One young woman apologised for asking. I cheerfully informed her I have no uterus. But said there wad a time that would have upset me. I remember well 13 years ago when I was sent for a chest x-ray to ensure my ectopic pregnancy wasn't in fact trophoblastic cancer. I was referred by the gynae ward, but the details didn't come through or were never read, And when asked if there was a chance I was pregnant, I dissolved into tears. Such a simple, necessary question had been so cruel then, and so unnecessary. This time, I didn't flinch. Or any flinching was purely habit, muscle memory, remembering the pain that no longer came.

Finally, I was never once asked if I had children. Three days of urgent clinics to the Emergency Department to the orthopaedic ward to operating theatre to recovery to physio to discharge, even with mention of IVF, I was treated as a human being first and foremost. That was what was important, not whether I had procreated or not. It was, frankly, a relief, given everything else that had been going on.