Part two: The ER

Catch up on what happened here.

Being in the Emergency Room in a foreign country is more than enough to make you appreciate that you decided to study abroad in a place where you're (more or less) a native speaker of the language. Since I was broke as a joke (and paying double thanks to the exchange rate), I was also thankful for the VAT tax I'd been paying all along which made the total cost of this ridiculous adventure exactly £0. Well, £15 when you take into account the cab fare.

But first, getting there! After dinner, two friends and I made a pilgrimage to the John Radcliffe Infirmary. It was a bit of a hike in heels, and there was some serious confusion about where the main entrance was (I think we tried to get in through a greenhouse out back), but after some exploring, we were able to find the door. They'd hidden it right behind the huge fountain and rotary driveway...

Once inside, however, we discovered that the John Radcliffe Infirmary exists mainly to trick and torment injured Oxford students. We approached a man at the front desk who was seriously grumpy. He said nothing to us. We stood there, blinking. Finally, my friend Claire took the reigns and said, "My friend has been in an accident and needs to see a doctor."

Our grumpy gatekeeper replied, "Well, unless this accident impacted her eyesight in some way, we can't help her." It doesn't seem that bad when I type it, but read it with a British accent and some serious snark.

We blinked at him some more. Great, the John Radcliffe Infirmary is secretly an eye hospital. They couldn't fit that in the name anywhere, I guess.

Finally, he informed us that we would need to go to the John Radcliffe Hospital that was about 4 miles away. Did we have a car, he wondered. As if he had somehow missed the American accents that belied our status as visiting students. As if anyone in Oxford proper had a car. "Use the phone to the right there and call a taxi, then!" he barked at us.

After checking our wallets, we decided we probably had enough money for a cab there and back. We arrived at the hospital, and after a bit more "where is the entrance" confusion, walked into the ER where the receptionist asked me for my name, my postal code, and the name of my GP. Then she told me to have a seat and assured me that the nurse would be right with me.

Claire and I sat down, as far from the woman who was coked out of her mind and bleeding everywhere as we possibly could. She had a habit of wandering around, which we discovered over the course of the next 4 hours, so our attempts at distance where unfortunately futile.

The nurse called my name. So soon! I was impressed. She took me back to a partitioned area and asked what happened. We had the following conversation:

"Well, um...I got hit by a bike"
"Motor, or pedal?"
"Excuse me?"
"The bike...was it a motor bike? or a pedal bike?"
"Pedal." Can people walk away from being hit by motorcycles???
"Ok. Have you taken any pain medication?"
"I took some ibuprofen after it happened, about two hours ago."
"Ok, take some more now. Here you go."
"Um, ok. Thanks."
"Are you allergic to any medications?"
"Yeah, Percocet makes me violently ill."
"What's that?"

After we established that neither of us had any idea what the UK branding of Percocet was, she assured me that they wouldn't be given me anything that strong and sent me off to get my arm x-rayed.

There was some kind of fundraiser going on, so there were signs around the hospital that advised patients that staff might be wearing funny hats throughout the day, and if this was disturbing, we should notify the staff member who would promptly remove the offending hat.

My x-ray tech was hatless. I was disappointed.

After taking pictures of my bones, they shuffled me off to another room where I was provided with a Civil War Era Army Issue sling. No joke, this was a triangle of beige cloth that they wrapped under my arm and tied around my neck. I felt a bit like a character in Newsies or something, but the ghetto-sling served its purpose just fine.

This whole time, I marveled at the efficiency of the process. Having never been to the Emergency Room in the States, but having heard many many horror stories, I was quite pleased with myself for getting hit by a pedal bike in the UK instead.

After setting up my sling, they told me to go back to the waiting room until the doctor could take a look at my x-rays.

I should probably remind you that I was still wearing my black-tie dinner clothes, complete with Formal Hall gown (For those too lazy to Google, this is what it looks like, minus the cap). There weren't very many other patients waiting in the ER, but that somehow only made it more awkward to be clacking around in heels.

They failed to mention that we could expect to wait for the doctor indefinitely, so Claire and I struggled to amuse ourself with the BBC telethon featuring d-list British pop stars singing songs we didn't know. Somewhere around 2am we began counting just how much money we had. If we combined our resources, would we have enough money to get some Cadbury's Buttons and still get back to Oxford? We figured we'd be cutting it close, but our hunger, boredom and utter exhaustion needed to be placated, so we decided to splurge.

I'll fast forward a bit because this post is starting to feel as tedious as the actual wait to see the doctor. When I was finally called back, I had a five minute conversation with a physician who could not have been over the age of 23. He said my x-rays were fine, that I should continue taking ibuprofen and wear the sling, but not for too long because then my muscles would actually take longer to heal.

Before I knew it, I was back at the main entrance, trying to get a few pounds out of a broken ATM. We gave up and made a plan that involved dropping Claire off at her college while I waited in the cab for her to fetch the 10 quid she had in her room. While waiting in the cab, the driver looked back at me in the rearview, "So what happened?" he asked. "I got hit by a bike," I sighed. "Ah," he tried not to laugh. "It happens."

All of this happened the evening before my sister was supposed to arrive for her Thanksgiving visit. I got back to my room around 4am and figured I could probably sleep until 10, giving myself a whole hour to get cleaned up (who knew how long it would take to shower with a bum arm?) and get to the bus stop. Her flight landed around 7 at Heathrow, so I figured between border control, customs and the bus ride, I'd be early.

Woke up around 9am to find I had something like 8 million missed calls on my cell from a number I didn't recognize at all. Turns out my sister has super powers and arrived in Oxford two hours sooner than I'd thought humanly possible. Told her I'd meet her at the bus stop, apologized profusely while throwing on what I hoped were clean clothes and running out the door.

Arrived at the bus-stop-coffee-shop slinged and breathless to find my sister sitting with her suitcase, sipping a cappuccino.

"Ohmigod, what happened to you?!"
"It's a long story."