What wonderful weather we’ve had over the last few days… finally enjoying hot, sunny and windless days. Unfortunately nature as unpredictable as ever down here in the far south may have credited us with this good weather a little too early as the debt collector is expected to turn up on Christmas Day. Oh well I’m sure it won’t distract us from celebrating. Jude and I have been busy around the farm stead maintaining the veggie gardens and repairing things that have been plaguing the guys here for some time.

With a few solid days in the heat and while watering the potato patch Jude decides it time to have a break. I mount the quad bike as Jude heads to the gate to open it and thump she trips on her loose boot laces which literally Hogg ties her feet and demonstrates why gravity can sometimes suck. She lands prone and for a minute I thought she had kissed Mother Earth with her face but fortunately she managed to get her hands down enough to soften the impact. Unfortunately she took some damage to the landing gear and broke her arm.

Tom arrives just in time to help her to her feet and as stubborn as Jude gets as “I’m Ok… it was obvious she was in some pain with her left wrist. After a short to and fro discussion and examination we convinced her that she needs to visit ED at Southland hospital for an X-Ray as I was sure she had a fracture . Sling on and arm elevated (the full extend of my 36 year Paramedic career lol) we headed to Southland Hospital.

Waiting waiting waiting at ED

We arrived at ED at 14:45hrs and it was nice to catch up with a friend of Jude and I Kim who was the receptionist at ED. Then a bit of a wait for the triage nurse who didn’t think she had a fracture and told us to sit down and they will call for us. Kim says we will have to wait up to 3 hrs before we’re seen… f#*k me I thought to myself however from historical comments from others including my daughter Dae-Maree I had a suspicion we would be waiting.

5.5 hrs we were waiting and as I was seeking paracetamol from the triage nurse (now a different one because of change of shift) for Jude as her pain was 9/10 they called her in. The Nurse practitioner examined Jude’s left wing and decided a x-ray was needed… “Follow the blue line to the X-Ray Department”. We got there as it was 10 meters ED to be met by a radiologist who told us to take a seat as she had not yet record the authorisation. There was only one seat so as Jude was the victim being a gentleman was in order and I sat on the floor lol. Another 10 minutes and Jude was summons to the x-ray room. Only took about 3 min to take X-Rays and then sent back out to the waiting room.

Thankfully we didn’t have to wait longer than half an hour and we were summoned back into the treatment arena. Where Jude was informed that she had indeed a fracture and the good news was it was not a dislocated fracture. As the x-ray shown indicated a clear line across her radial bone.

Hard to see but it’s there just below the wrist.

It was a nice clean fracture and so a trainee nurse was given the responsibility of putting the cast on. She was nervous and to be honest not very reassuring when she kept measuring and referring to a picture guide book. However everyone has to learn somehow and in the end she did a very good job. 7.5 hrs all up from the time we entered ED to the time we walked out. Man we have some serious issues with our health system. But at least Jude got a break… maybe not the type she’s was after.😂🤣👍🏽