A badly broken arm.
It was championship night on Monday. My son Cass and his team were through to the baseball finals. They had worked hard all season, and were about to face an equally good team. It was going to be the Blacks against the Greens. The game started at five thirty. My husband had already taken Cass to the team's warm-up session before the game, so I arranged to meet them at the baseball field at the start of the game. As I entered the ball park, I saw my father-in-law, already situated comfortably to watch the game. I chatted with him a little, but was interrupted by my phone ringing. "Anna, it's Doreen. I've broken my arm. I've broken it badly," I heard my neighbor say with difficulty, and then she hung up. I had to leave. There was no one else to help her. Her son, who lives in town, had a stroke last year and can't drive or talk. Her daughter lives in California, and most of her friends are in their eighties, so it was up to me to help. I told my father-in-law what was going on, and he agreed to look after my kids. I ran off to the car and got to her house as soon as possible. The door to Doreen's house was open, as was her car. There were shopping bags full of groceries here and there; she had obviously fallen whilst trying to unload the car. She was standing in the kitchen crying, and holding on to her arm. After easing her into her car, off we went to the hospital. The nurses cut off her sweater; it was too painful to move her arms and to take off her top. They gave her pain medicine, and then x-rayed her arm. It turned out to be a very bad break, in three places, with one of the little bones in fractures. Doreen looked exhausted. She was tired and hungry, drowsy from the medicine, and now, suddenly, nauseous. She has a delicate stomach, and does not take medicine easily. "I'm going to be sick!" she said covering her mouth. I held a plastic bowl under her chin and held her forehead; that's what my mother used to do when I was little. "Fan her!" I said in a bit of a panic to a lady in the room. After a while she felt better. Poor, poor lady; I felt sorry for her. At least she was in the right place, and arrangements were being made for her surgery in the morning. Her daughter-in-law turned up and said that she would take her home. Of course she wouldn't be able to drive herself, not even for a few months.
Grammar notes.
Related vocabulary: to warm up, the ball park, stroke, nausea.
1. The athletes need to warm up otherwise they might get an injury.
2. The championship game will take place in the local ball park.
3. She recovered from her stroke; with therapy, she has learned to walk and talk again.
4. That boat ride will cause a lot of nausea. |