Should Have Listened to Mum

 

Sarah, encouraged by her sister and dad, started cycling when she returned to the UK and is now passionate about the sport. Her new partner, Andrew, is also a keen cyclist and they spend a lot of time mountain biking and road biking together.

One warm summer's evening last year she told me they were going out for a ride.  I suggested that it might be nicer to spend the evening in her garden with a cool beer but she was determined to go out.  Cycling is not without risk and unfortunately Sarah came a cropper that evening when she fell heavily on the road after hitting some loose gravel. As well as grazing her legs she sustained a nasty cut to her elbow. Andrew cleaned her up and put a dressing on her elbow but I told her to call in on her way to work the next morning so that I could clean it up thoroughly and put some steri-strips on it.

The following morning I carefully removed the dressing from her elbow and immediately thought “I can't do this”. It was a messy cut, and clearly needed irrigating to remove any remnants of gravel. I didn't really have the kit to do this but also, it was going to hurt and I just couldn't bring myself to cause discomfort to my own daughter. In my defence she was going to need a tetanus injection anyway so Paul took her off to the A&E department at our local hospital.

She had to wait a few hours at the hospital because they wanted to x-ray her elbow to check there wasn't a fracture but they cleaned the wound, steri-stripped it and did the tetanus injection. It healed without any complications although she has a scar.
I'm still surprised that I felt so queasy when I saw her injury. I must be going soft in my old age.