breaking my leg broke my world view
the unexpected journey to a gap year at 30 (part 2)
My name is Lauren. Two weeks ago, I quit my job in big tech to travel the world, after ending an 8 year relationship, finding love again, shattering my leg in a road accident and surrendering to the concept of living a wild and precious life. This is my story.
Part 2
I’m going to be completely honest with you. I’ve attempted this post a couple of times, but my body doesn’t like it. Dry mouth, racing heart, curling-toes and a sick feeling down to the pit of my stomach.
The day my leg smashed into the back of a taxi was indeed ‘a day which lay sly and unseen’ (Tess of the D’Ubervilles, Thomas Hardy).
I’d landed free gig tickets to see McFly. If you’re British, you’ll know the band I mean (Five Colours in Her Hair, Obviously, All About You). I managed to convince a friend to come along with me (the gorgeous Molly from spag mol). We spent the evening squeezed into a surprisingly packed music venue in Camden, sweating profusely and singing (screaming) along to nostalgic pop punk tunes.
After the gig, despite warnings from my parents about cycling in London, I decided to take an electric bike home (something I’d started to do infrequently). It’s difficult to write about what happens next.
The first thing I remember was the sound of exploding glass - as if a huge chandelier had shattered against a marble floor. A shrill crescendo of metal crushing metal.
The next thing I knew, I was lying flat on my back. My helmet and rucksack had cushioned the blow between my body and the gravel, saving my life. My bike lay a few metres in front of me. There was a flash of headlights as the taxi pulled away hastily.
Remarkably, I managed to drag the bike off the road, before collapsing in front of a nightclub.
“Get the girl a tequila”, the queue chanted.
“Or three”, I wince. At least I still had a sense of humour.
Of course, the fact that my knee felt like it was in the fiery furnace of hell didn’t matter. I must be imagining the pain. Frozen peas and elevation was all I needed. Accident & Emergency would take hours. A nurse, halfway through a nightshift, would offer me paracetamol and tell me it’s just a sprain.
I hailed a taxi back to my flat and used my forearms to drag myself up two flights of stairs, my legs flailing behind me. Using my arms, I slid on my stomach across the kitchen floor to the freezer. Frozen peas. The answer to all medical emergencies.
After heaving myself onto my bed, my knee wrapped in frozen peas and dish cloth, I thought I should tell someone what had happened. The problem was, it was 1am and my flatmate was on holiday. I could contact my poor parents, but I’d only moved out of my family home a few weeks ago (read part 1 here). They’d been through enough.
‘What about your friends?’, you’re thinking. I’m British. I’ve never asked a friend for help in my life. And I certainly wouldn’t be starting here.
White hot pain sizzled down my left leg.
Perhaps this was the end.
I thought about Tim - the guy I’d been dating for a month. What better way to go than in the arms of a handsome German banker? I knew he was still awake and at his desk - he was a Finance Bro, after all. F*ck it, I thought. I sent a nonchalant text: “I fell off my bike. I think I’ve done something to my leg”. Tim came round straight away.
The next morning, unable to stand, I booked a taxi into hospital. I didn’t want to burden Tim, so I elected to go alone, brushing off the pain in my leg cheerfully. But I couldn’t even make it to the hospital entrance. I was stranded, clinging onto a bollard just outside the building. Tears rolled down my cheeks.
An old man in a hospital gown, with tubes plugged into his arm, was finishing a cigarette when he spotted me. He told me to wait where I was, and reappeared with a hospital wheelchair. He pushed me all the way to urgent care, despite his own frailness. Everyone else had ignored me. I sobbed at this random act of kindness. Strangers can be so heartbreakingly kind.
I waited for 8 hours. Eventually I was (mis)diagnosed with severe bruising and a fractured finger, despite needing gas and air to set my leg into a cricket-pad brace. My very concerned parents picked me up, and I went home with nothing but exhaustion and a packet of paracetamol.
Three days later, I was called back to hospital. A junior doctor had assessed my x-ray incorrectly. I had, in fact, suffered a tibial plateau fracture - a break in the shine bone (tibia) at the knee joint. I needed emergency surgery: a bone graft and a metal plate, fixed with 16 steel pins. My wonderful parents didn’t leave my side - despite being furious about my cycling in London and that I didn’t call them straight away - and I burst into tears when my best friend (and flatmate) came to visit me in hospital after the surgery.
As far as my love life was concerned, any hopes of moving forward with Tim were leaving me, little by little. I distanced myself. I used the fact that his parents were visiting from Germany to shut down any notion that he would visit me in hospital. Even if Tim was free, I’m not sure he would have come. We’d only known each other for a month, after all.
But a few days after my surgery, a little care package turned up at my family home, from Tim. We messaged a lot and as soon as I was well enough to return to London, we were reunited.
“You didn’t sign up for this”, I whispered to Tim one evening, “I don’t mind if we call it a day”. A machiavellian test, of course - I’m a devious creature.
Tim was one step ahead, “it’s just a broken leg. It will heal”.
I don’t think either of us understood, at that point, that recovery would span the length of our relationship to date. Our first 18 months together were marked by milestones like learning to walk again, extensive physio, the mental toll of a life changing injury and eventually another surgery to remove the metalwork. At the time of writing, I still cannot run. I’m preparing a post on how I’m travelling the world post-tibial plateau fracture - watch this space.
So, how did breaking my leg, break my world view?
It’s pretty obvious.
In alternate universes, it’s raining heavily. I’m cycling faster. I’m not wearing my helmet.
In alternate universes, I get the train home. I run marathons. I dance.
Months later, one evening in bed, Tim mentions that he is thinking of quitting his job to go travelling.
“I’d never quit my job - you’d have to go alone. Plus, I don’t do long-distance, so we’d have to break up ”, I lash out, almost reflexively. When I was 10 years old, I took a little briefcase on a family holiday to Spain. My dad lifted it onto the security belt at the airport, struck by its weight. My parents found the briefcase stuffed with every single study book I owned (on the other hand, my younger brother had packed a plastic hand grenade). I’ve killed myself to get to where I am now. My career is…everything. I look around my bedroom, my crutches are neatly tucked against the door.
My knee aches deeply, but an ember inside me starts to glow.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading my second post. You can catch up on my first post here. Consider subscribing if you’d like to hear more of my story as I prepare for my gap year. Next post, next week - see you then.
Your writing! Your journey! Hooked. Can’t wait to read more.
Wait so the taxi LEFT YOU THERE??? WTF??? 🤬
Hope your knee continues to improve!