Wait For It....

It is only a short sound, certainly. “Ouoohhh”. Short but certainly containing plenty of question and conveying concern. The doctor held my de-casted (?) arm and seemed to locate what he had been searching for, in comparing the actual arm, to the x-ray, which he had the nurse holding up. His manipulating hand stopped at a certain point of my arm and he applied various pressures, without looking at where he was holding, but focusing all his attention on the x-ray. Obviously feeling the ‘badly healing point’ he was looking for. I realized from where I was sitting, that the doctor had his mouth open and was moving is tongue around as he felt the damaged arm. Similar to when you sometimes observe a child concentrating as they draw, their tongue moves around as if guiding their pencil by its direction, remotely. He must have noticed me looking at his tongue as he drew his mouth closed (until then the nurse couldn’t have seen, or perhaps she was politely ignoring it. 
Once he located the area of his concern, he peered intently at the x-ray before nodding. “Yes”, he said. Then without really explaining to anyone, he said calmly and as clearly as if reading a menu. “We will have to break your arm again and realign it” Re-align it? That took a moment. Then the words “break your arm again” imposed them selves. That meant it was definitely not healing, as he would like. But realigning? … and breaking again? (This of course could be one reason today that, for serious breaks, they often consider surgery the first time around). I tried to remain calm. While I had had several broken bones, of which this was only the most recent, generally the actual breaking part, well, it hurt.  Briefly, but it was usually painful. “Oh”, I said. So will you need to prepare for that?” He looked down at my 12 years and smiled as does any adult knowing they know more than the young ‘child’ before them.
“Prepare what?” He enquired innocently. “Do I need an injection or something?” I asked.  “An injection?” he asked, as if he had no idea of what I was talking about. “Before you break it. You know, for an …anaesthetic?” I queried.  It was as if a light suddenly came on. “Well,” The doctor replied enthusiastically. “That is worth considering.” He held my arm up as he moved it closer to him. “You see, I was looking at this point here.” He indicated a point about half way along my forearm. “Has this been painful at all?” I nodded. “And…”, he said “here?” Indicating a point a little further down the arm as he moved the arm closer to where he stood at the side of the bed I was sitting on. I nodded again. “But what about over there?” He looked up past me and foolishly I turned my head away from my arm to look where he was indicating. (Yes, I had fallen for it.)
(definitely continued tomorrow)