Para 'f**king' cetamol...

I have just spent the previous evening in the local accident and emergency department.

My friend J, has managed to do herself a mischief at the weekend and having got to Monday evening has decided she can not take the pain anymore.

Alas, her injury itself is not that exciting for a blog...no mishap with a razor, no strange insertions or dodgy positions...simply a suspected broken foot.

She can not even recall how she did it - although she was at the Brighton game on Saturday, so I suspect she kicked a Crystal Palace fan in the nuts during the rioting.

The only thing we can ascertain is that she was clubbing and dancing on Saturday night and when she woke up Sunday morning she could barely walk. So putting two and two together, the suggestion is that someone probably stood or stamped on her foot while she was getting down with the kids, or moshing in the pit with all the other youngsters.

After struggling around all day, I managed to convince her that going to hospital was the right idea as her foot was beginning to swell up and turn a rather nasty shade of black all down the right hand side.

Thankfully she agreed, hence the reason we spent the best part of five hours in A & E....in fact I am composing this blog from the discomfort of the waiting room, with her son's seriously decent headphones (got to get me some of these) while I wait for her to come out from seeing the doctor.

She has been triaged and x-rayed, stubbed her foot and sworn loudly...demanded attention like a sodding celebrity, asked for morphine when she was horrifyingly only offered paracetamol and in general behaved like a stroppy diva.

"Para'f**king'cetamol??? Is that the best they can offer? Don't they know I work for the NHS?"

I am ashamed to say that at one point I had to apologise to our fellow waiting people, when she swore her head off after banging her foot on the chair...I know, I know, she probably deserved sympathy, however she was doing something sneaky when she banged her foot and that was plugging in her mobile phone charger into the hospital plug behind the coffee machine....sheesh, you just can't take some people anywhere.

To be fair, she is in a lot of pain...and actually there is probably no one else for sense of humour that I would want to spend an evening of entertainment with at the local hospital...but boy is she milking it!

She has now requested a wheelchair so that she can go to the toilet which is just two bloody feet away...no photographs please, even though the paparazzi are probably waiting for her outside, all rushed away from Kate Middleton's hospital to camp outside ours.

She has also tried to mug a little old lady who was actually in a wheelchair, and looked about 95....and indignantly told her that her needs were greater.

I am just waiting for her to request an ambulance ride home and a hoist to complete the drama.

So we wait a little bit longer...and try and play 'Guess the injury/illness of the next person' just to stop us from going completely bonkers.

What is about hospitals that make you feel slightly insane as the evening wears on? Is it the dodgy coffee? The smelly people? The clock watching? Or the annoying child who keeps walking dangerously close to J's foot, and is seriously heading for a mouthful if he isn't careful....

Anyway, we are now coming up to our fifth hour here...ho hum...hopefully not much longer, or I may just need to find some drugs for me to get me through the evening.