That's not where I left it...

So today's post will be themed around things not being where they're supposed to be. Namely, body parts.

Recently I came across such a case and it occurred to me that I was not the person I once was. I discovered this when two people walking past the scene stopped and stared at disbelief before swearing with such voracity that even truckers would blush. It hit me then that witnessing dislocations, breaks and bleeding had no effect on me anymore - they were now clinical problems that had to be treated and solved.

The first such incident was a lateral dislocation of the patella (or knee cap to us) - luckily for the patient it had clicked back into place on its own, unfortunately it looked like he had a bit of damage to the tendons. That'll be a fair bit of physiotherapy.

Next came a double break - that's right, the radius and ulna bones of the left upper limb had been snapped clean in two leaving the arm to fling around like a rat on a stick. Manipulation, perhaps surgery and of course physiotherapy.

A dislocated and fractured ankle from a happy fence jumper comes next, the bones pulling on the skin until it was white... Luckily the foot still had blood supply, so just manipulation, surgery and physiotherapy.

Another ?fractured ankle, but a bit of an odd one. There was no swelling, but there was also no sensation at all. Couldn't bear weight or push/pull against my hand. I'm guessing x-rays, maybe ct scans, a few scratches on the head and something from there. And physiotherapy.

A MVC leaves a woman with a whopping bump on the noggin (and a pretty spider web on the windscreen). A fall onto hard ground leaves a shoulder dislocated but leaves the arm with blood supply (physio).

I sometimes wander if it's a good thing I'm becoming more and more detached from this - will I reach a point where nothing phases me? I'm not so sure if that would be a good thing, but at the same time I wouldn't want every case to stay with me. In some professions more than others, you shouldn't take work home with you. How will I work out? Time will tell, but currently I'm happy with my reactions. I still have the internal monologue of "that's so cool!" followed by "Can I get you some pain relief?", but I don't know how that would apply to some of the more serious accidents.

Moral of the story? Make sure you leave things where they belong - otherwise a man in a little blue jumpsuit might be grinning at how cool it looks. And you'd need physiotherapy.