Skating On Thin Ice

I never broke a single bone in my life, until I reached the age of forty. It was a Saturday morning and I had my three young children staying for the weekend. Being separated, I always wanted to make the most of their visits, to give them some happy memories of their childhood with me. On this particular visit, I decided to take the children to the Blades ice rink. Not that I was an expert at sliding around an arena of sheet ice. I could, however, go around the rink without constantly falling on my ass.

When we arrived at the rink I could see that it was already full. It was mostly young kids going around on the ice as if they were born into it. They could easily get up to great speed and bank into a turn like it was second nature to them. I realised that I would have to be careful and try to avoid crashing into them. 

We'll be ok, I thought confidently. We can just take it easy and stay near the rail that circled the rink. That way me and my children could easily grab a hold of something to avoid falling down.

The trick to ice skating, I found, was to simply put one foot in front of the other. You have to get into a gentle rhythm of shifting your weight from left to right and back again. And don't push too hard, just let your feet gently make contact with the ice and the slippery surface would do the rest all on its own.

I think, due to having a much lower centre of gravity, young children find it a lot easier to take to ice skating. And if they do fall, it doesn't hurt so much as they weigh much lighter and don't have as far to fall as an adult.

For a good fifteen minutes, my children and I were doing ok, gliding around in circles to Ravel's Bolero like Torvil and Dean, on a bad day. I never fell once, though my kids did take quite a few tumbles, thankfully nothing hurtful enough to make them cry. Then suddenly I got blindsided by some kid in a bright red fleece.

Coming at me from behind, I simply didn't see the kid. He sailed past me at great speed and cut very close. He clipped my right heel as he passed. My left leg went forwards, and the right flew back. I involuntarily did the splits.

As I hit the ice I cursed the kid under my breath and looked after him for later identification. It was useless, there must have been at least a dozen kids in a red fleece, just like him.

I got to my feet and gingerly started to skate. My right knee hurt, a lot. However, I thought it was something I could simply skate off with a few circuits of the rink. I was wrong. After two circuits I had to come off the ice. And as soon as I took off the right skating boot the pain went through the roof. I could not even bear to put my foot on the floor. It was time to go home.

I hobbled back to my car with the children and we headed for home. On the way, I called in at my local hospital to get my leg checked out. The doctor who dealt with me told me it was nothing, just a bruise and a little swelling. I asked him for an X-ray, but he refused and tried to reassure me that there was no need.

Having never broken a single bone in my body, like ever, I could not be sure, but I reasoned that if anything ever felt like a fracture, this was it.

"I think it may be broken doctor," I said.

"No, it's not broken, trust me, I'm a doctor, I know what I'm talking about. I'm going to give you some painkillers and a pair of crutches. In a few days, you'll be right as rain. Come back in a week just to make sure you're ok. Thank you. Bye."

My biggest problem was I lived in a three-story house with the kitchen on the ground floor, the living room on the second, and my bedroom on the third.

My other problem was I had three children with me. And my ex had given me so many problems to do with access, I did not want to give her the least excuse to take them away from me and not let me have them again. We got through it with me shuffling up and down the two flights of stairs on my bottom. Unfortunately, the children told their mother about my accident and injury and she, yet again, suspended all access for the rest of the summer. It felt like a blade to the heart.

A week later I went back to the hospital. By this time my knee had swollen to the size of a watermelon and sported multi-coloured bruising. The self-same doctor took one look at my damaged knee and said "Oh, that looks like it might be broken. I think we should do an X-ray." At that moment I really wanted to give this idiot a piece of my mind. However, I knew that that would get me nowhere.

Sure enough, the X-ray showed a fracture line right across my kneecap. All they could do was give me more painkillers and extend the loan of the crutches. It took about four weeks for the pain to ease off enough for me to get around unaided by crutches. Sadly, I didn't get to see the kids for the next three months, and that felt like a cut with a knife.