You might be why I posted such a grim entry yesterday, and why I went into so much detail over it – why not just keep such matters to myself? The thing is, I knew I’d have to tell my parents about what happened on Thursday somehow. That means I would need to email them, message them over Facebook, or video chat to them. All three methods would cause them to worry, and I probably wouldn’t be able to explain myself fully without getting interrupted or sidetracked. If I blogged about what happened, however, I could explain myself fully in prose, outlining all the details. The downside to that, of course, is that Mum and Dad would only get to know what happened when they read my blog, which I admit is pretty a cold and impersonal way of finding out your son had been run over by a car; the advantage is that I could also show the entry to whoever else I needed to, making explaining far quicker. More broadly, such entries also give readers in general an idea of the kinds of things people like me go through fairly regularly.

As it is, the blog entry proved to be a great help. Upon the advice of several people, I went back to the hospital yesterday to get my foot checked. It was a long, slow afternoon sat waiting in A+E. I wasn’t an urgent case, so all I could do was sit there, fiddling with my Ipad for about four hours. I’ve never been more pleased to have Wifi, frankly, although at one point I found myself reflecting that hospital waiting rooms should have bars, they’re such grim, depressing places.

When I did eventually get seen, at around four after arriving at about midday, things happened remarkably quickly: I was taken to a room, the nurse took my details, took my shoe and sock off and at last examined my foot. I showed her my blog entry so that she had a clear idea of what happened. I was then taken to have it X-Rayed, which I must admit was rather fun. Then, after a bit more waiting, I was taken back to see the nurse to be told that nothing was wrong with my foot, nothing was broken and I was free to go home.

To tell the truth, my foot feels fine this morning. I can walk as normally as I ever do. A day sitting in my chair, resting it yesterday probably helped. Even so, it was worth going to check it out. The NHS may be at breaking point, overused and understaffed, but we should all be bloody grateful that it is there. That I can get into such scrapes and be able to go and get myself checked over, without having to worry about paying, is frankly the very definition of a modern, civilised society. It may have taken an entire afternoon, but it was good to be reminded how great the NHS is.

Mind you, it’s also good to be able to blog about such things, getting my thoughts out onto the internet – it makes explaining stuff so much easier.