Birth of a Legend

The day I come out of hospital after the broken shoulder incident, I'm sitting with our five-and-a-half year old grandson at lunch. He wants to ask a question.
"Arrow?"

I stop my one-handed food juggling as a thought occurs and I ask him, "What do you tell your school friends when they ask why you call me 'Arrow'?"
"I tell them it's your secret superhero name."
Near enough - it was my now-declassified code-name back in the day.
"Retired superhero," I correct him. "You've got two retired superhero grandfathers, Arrow and Jedda."
(Grandfather Karel is actually "Děda" which is Czech for 'Grandpa' but sounds as if it belongs to the same word group as 'Jedi' with its heroic overtones.)
With a suitably serious and thoughtful expression I say, "I wonder what your secret superhero name will be when you're bigger?" (I come from a proud line of straight-faced story-tellers and yarn spinners). "I guess you'll find out when the time comes."
"Anyway", I say, "what were you going to ask?"
"What happened to your arm?"
Suddenly I realise that although he was right in the middle of the mêlée, he is the only person who didn't actually see what happened. One second he was running around having fun, next second he was on the ground in a tangle of arms, legs, hosepipe and people screaming.
I say, "Remember when we were having a water fight yesterday, and chasing each other with the hosepipe?"
"Yes."
"And then we all got tangled in the hose and fell down?"
"Yes."
"Well, we were running very fast and were going to fall into the wall, so I put my arm out to stop us crashing into it. But we hit it so hard my arm broke."
He thinks about it for a moment, then his eyes widen.
"You sacrificed your arm to save us!"
For a moment I think perhaps I should unwind this a bit. But then I speculate on what he is going to tell his classmates when they return to school next year and are asked to describe what happened in the holidays.
"My superhero granddad Arrow sacrificed his arm to save me."
I think we can live with that.

Them's the Breaks

The family evacuated their home in the Adelaide Hills and came to stay with us during last week's catastrophic bushfire period. In the evening of the hottest day, after the grandkids had been cooped inside all day, we got outside when the back garden was in shade and were having one of the best water battles, chasing each other with the hose and having a lovely time.

In one skirmish we all got tangled up, tripped, and I put my hand out to stop us crashing into a wall. I straight-armed into the wall, my shoulder sort of imploded and I went down in a screaming heap. I do not mean that figuratively.

My family is amazing; elder daughter took charge and called triple 0 while getting me and everyone else organised.

Caroline and Mary, the two brilliant ambos, got the worst of the pain under control and it took them plus a couple of firies whom they called in from a nearby job to get me onto a gurney, out of the garden and into the ambulance

I was admitted to the ED at the new RAH immediately, no queues or ramping on what was a very busy night.

Could not fault the staff or the care I got - all were excellent. Perhaps it would be good if politicians, decision-makers and quick-on-the-draw critics were compelled to spend a night as an observer in ED to see just what the staff have to put up with and how they go about looking after all kinds of people calmly and professionally.

Long story short - I have a very messy fracture of the head and neck of the humerus with bits and fragments generously scattered here and there. As the doc said, "You made a good job of it".

The bad news is that there is no procedure to fix it, just a collar and cuff sling, time, gritted teeth and occasional pain relief when it gets too bad.

Sleeping is a challenge, as is standing and sitting.

I was discharged the next morning with my sling and prescription and am now home. I think I am in for an interesting Christmas and New Year.