Walking on Broken Glass

6.10pm was inconsequential. I had just put chicken on to cook. Nina had just got home and was showing me some books for Uni. Nick was petting the dog. Then Nina screamed. She had trodden on a shard of glass from a ‘free with McDonalds’ beaker that Nick had broken the night before. There was a bizarrely humorous conversation with NHS direct (we called them to ask if we should go to the walk in centre or to the hospital), the operator telling Nina, ‘apply pressure to the wound and call NHS direct’. I made light of the injury, but we went to A&E. As the evening went on it turned out that the removal of the fragment of glass was no small thing. Several painful injections and a bad reaction to nitrous oxide later, and Nina was being booked for surgery.


I spent much of the time thinking of my late Great Uncle Stephen’s attitude to injury. Practical and self sufficient, he had no trust in doctors, contempt for nurses and suspicion of tablets. His response to any cut was a liberal smear of iodine. He kept a bottle of this dark liquid in his shed, using it on me if he got wind that I had a grazed knee. It stung and the mahogany stain often outlasted the scab. He liked TCP for throats and Vic for snuffles. I knew what he would have done with the foot. Soaked in hot water, then picked it out with a needle if he could. Otherwise, iodine and leave it alone. Interestingly, ‘leave it alone’ turned out to be an option. It turns out that the body would eventually produce puss and expel the foreign body, but it would mean literally walking on broken glass for weeks.
I daresay Nina has correctly opted for the operation but I still say, Uncle Stephen’s advice was better than NHS direct.

Props to the staff at Coventry A&E, you are all super-attentive, competent, kind angels. Thank you.