She did call her doctor on the Monday as the paramedic had suggested.
They said they would give her physio and put her on the waiting list.
A week later, perhaps because she had had to put all her weight on her right foot, her right leg’s calf
went as hard as a stone and as cold as ice, not like the total loss of strength that had occurred in her
left thigh a week before. Now both legs out of action she was offered and given physio straight
away, physio for a twisted ankle.
The dropping of the telephone on her foot as she reached across and up to pick it up to ring the
doctor or 111, in that moment wondering if she was in the middle of a sitcom and where was the
canned laughter? But this was not funny; it hurt too much to be funny. The falling of the telephone
seemed to be ignored, forgotten, even though mentioned again.
Over the following weeks she dutifully did the physio, building up the exercises till it came to the one
which involves rolling tins under the soles of your feet. Like daggers the pain seared up through her
body. Why did she not call an ambulance? Just passed 8pm on a Saturday evening she thought about
the long waiting to be seen, and perhaps she would be better in the morning.
She was always better in the morning. The long painful nights would disappear, the cries into the
darkness, the repeating of the Lord’s Prayer, the realisation that in praying for others her own pain
subsided and sleep would draw her breath into peace.
Now she could no longer place her left foot flat upon the floor. The distance from where she sat to
the stair lift stretched out before her, an endless mine field. She managed to place herself on a stool,
right foot taking her weight, left foot heel, maybe, jolt through the pain. She could have still called
an ambulance but for six weeks none in a position of medical authority had suggested it. Their eyes
were turned in another direction so if those who knew didn’t think it necessary, she had no
confidence in herself and besides she was thinking of going to church the next day.
A friend had rung up and she had told him she was going to church and that another friend would
give her a lift. Using the car had already become problematic; she had already had to leave it once at
church because she had lost the feeling in the sole of her left foot. It was an automatic car so she
didn’t actually need her left foot to drive, but the pain had been too much and a friend had given her
a lift then a few days later she had been able to return to retrieve her car.
So she thought: I will be better in the morning!
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