I arrived at the hostel feeling restless. There are so many places and things to see. I want to see and explore it all NOW!
I saw there was a free walking tour leaving in 20 minutes. Perfect! I'm in!
Trafalgar Square. Buckingham Palace. Hyde Park. Westminster Abbey. Big Ben. St Pauls Cathedral. Tower of London. Tower Bridge.
So much history, so many stories.
I'd noticed during the walking tour that my ankle I'd injured 2 weeks earlier was getting progressively sorer and harder to walk on. I'd injured it while jogging back home and thought it was on the mend. I regularly got up, walked and stretched during the flight too. So why it was hurting was a mystery to me.
When I got back to the hostel and took my shoe off, my ankle was not an ankle anymore. It was a full-blown CANKLE! Not only that, my whole foot was double it's normal size. One of the girls I'd met on the tour was a nurse and got me some ice, extra pillows from reception and helped me put my foot up. What a gem.
A few hours and a short rest later it was still huge! I hopped down to reception (literally!) and showed them my foot. When people react with "Oh my God!!! Look at your foot!! Hey come and see this girls foot" you know it can't be good! They called a taxi for me and off I went to hospital. It was 10pm.
Sitting in the Accident & Emergency waiting room was not where I expected I'd be my first night in London. The mood was stale, awkward, depressing. People muttered quietly between each other, babies cried, people coughed, a few looked at my foot and gasped.
Yeah I know it's big and swollen, I just want to see a doctor now pleaseeeee!!
An hour later I saw a nurse who quickly assessed my cankle then sent me back out to the waiting room. When I sat down, two policemen were walking a middle-aged drunk man down the corridor and sat him down 2 seats from me. He was wearing a white shirt covered in blood stains, his right sleeve completely blood-soaked. He'd been in a pub fight that night. Lovely.
"What's your surname John?" the police asked him.
"John"
"So your name is John John then is it?!"
"Yes"
The banter was hilarious. It was like an episode of The Bill. When the police had finished questioning him and left, he turned and looked at me. My stomach churned. Ohh no, pleeeease don't talk to me.
"Hello, I'm John." (Go figure). He offered his blood stained hand for me to shake. I looked down at his hand and politely declined: "no thankyou."
Luckily the nurses called him out soon after, so I didn't have to talk to John for too long. I found a pen and paper in my pocket and drew flowers and smiley faces to keep myself positive.
Another 3 hours later I finally got to see a doctor. It was about 2am by this stage. He took a look at my ankle then told me he wanted to take some blood tests to see whether I had deep vein thrombosis. It took him 4 shots to find my vein. I sat there tired, sore and determined to hold myself together.
Then I thought of how proud mum would be if she knew I was sitting in the hospital doctors office, by myself, in a foreign country, at 2am, being stabbed 4 times. "Aww you're so strong darling" she would say. Tears started rolling down my cheeks.
The doctor smiled at me with a cheeky grin and asked if I was ok.
"I'm exhausted and haven't slept in 50 hours, and I am in a great deal of pain here. Could anything be more wrong?!" I thought.
He then asked about my trip and where I was from. His mother was Turkish, so we talked a bit about Turkey which cheered me up.
Then I hopped in a taxi straight to the hostel and into bed!
WHAT A DAY!
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