Trying to control a Dahon V folding bike the other day when the (kinda-weird) saddle fell off, I wound up taking a fall on my right wrist. I can’t say I was a happy camper. but I thought little of it right away. A few hours later was a different story, though, as, once I woke up for my usual old fogey 2 am call I couldn’t get back to sleep. My wife had a funeral to attend in the morning, but once she got back she drove me down to the local ER. I never realized how bumpy the roads were!

As it turned out there is a small triangle of cartilage in the wrist which cushions the bones of the forearm and helps anchor and direct various ligaments, and in breaking my fall I managed to tear it. A trio of X-rays confirmed that no bones were broken, and a half-cast to immobilize the joint saw me on my way. Don’t let anyone tell you that Canadian emergency room service is poor – I was through triage, checked by a doctor, into X-ray, and out with a cast on my arm in a little over an hour and a half, which I consider pretty good care. I have to go back to the Fracture Clinic in a couple of weeks for a follow-up visit, and I won’t hear anything about charges for care.

I’ll concede that the hospital wasn’t dealing with inner-city traumas, but I’ve been in hospitals where that sort of thing was being handled, and still was though in a matter of hours (while staff also handled a major accident, a couple of heart attacks, and what looked to be casualties from a gang fight involving knives). Everyone got seen according to priority – that’s what triage is for – including the dweebs with bad colds who hadn’t seen their family doctors all week and wanted service on a Saturday night RIGHT NOW (and to hell with the little kid who had fallen down a flight of stairs who came in after them). Canadian ERs do have problems with wait times on occasion, but it has always seemed to me that a lot of it is due to abuse of the service by folks who should have seen their family physician first or failing that should have gone to a walk-in clinic. At least everyone gets a good level of care, which some jurisdictions elsewhere can’t claim.

Anyway, my adventure with bicycling means I’ll be a little slower than usual making my way around town for a while, and my on-again off-again exercise program is once more on a back burner. I really can’t let that stand. Ben Franklin said he didn’t mind so much getting old as getting fat and old. I agree with him, but hopefully I will eventually be able to strike the f-word from my description.