Tell me your stories of medically missed broken bones

Ankle, diagnosed as a bad sprain... same thing wandered about on it, eventually stopped hurting then I developed a second ankle bone and arthritis. Got sent for an x ray six months on and the radiologist said the multiple type A weber fractures had healed not exactly in the right places apparently. Still have a second ankle bone.

Mine was on my left hand scaphoid. These fractures can often be missed. I was more concerned with my bruised behind at the time after a motorist knocked me off on a roundabout as he failed to give way. Went to A&E they x rayed my pelvis all good. The wrist was sore but I thought it was just sprained, should have asked for an x ray on it.

Anyway it didn’t get better. GP said it’s definitely not a scaphoid fracture. Went for an x Ray six months later. A scaphoid non union fracture. Got it pinned and it healed really quickly.

Elbow, about 28 years ago! Still gives me grief. I was running along a litter strewn road verge and an unseen piece of stiff wire tripped me. I landed on my left elbow.  A&E took one X-Ray which showed no break. I was sent on my way and told to rest it and take ibuprofen. When the pain hadn't subsided after a couple of weeks I went back. This time X-Rays from several angles showed a broken radial head, which had since set badly and it was too late to do anything about it. I've never been able to fully straighten it since, I have associated nerve damage down to my left hand and my elbow often locks painfully.

Bit of a positive experience - at least in the end.  ‘Sprained’ my right wrist 38 years ago.  Had my arm x-rayed 10 years after - turned out that rather than a sprain I had a hairline fracture.  No wonder it hurt like hell when I was 12!  Didn’t cause me any long-term problems though!

These are not the tales I wanted to hear.

I need someone to tell me I'm going to make a full recovery and the delay in finding it isn't going to make a real difference.

You are going to make a full recovery and the delay in finding it isn’t going to make a real difference.

IANAD

Neck here. Torpedoed a tree about 6 years back. NHS said fractured spinal process (sticky out bit), take it easy for 6 weeks, bugger off. Wouldn't even give me a neck brace, had to buy my own. Waited the 6 weeks, started riding again, another month or so later my right hand started going numb.

I went to a BUPA consultant through work, within 45 minutes I'd had a CT and an MRI scan. When I went in to see him straight afterwards he told me he thought he was going to have me strapped down to a board, he had gotten the NHS images beforehand. Showed me that while the spinal process had been fractured,  if you rotated the image and zoomed in you could clearly see that the vertebrae was fractured within a mm of my spinal cord. Luckily the fracture was stable but there were signs of calcification where it had been trying to heal but couldn't.  I thought that where I was landing jumps and my head was bobbing more than it should, the neck muscles had just weakened. I had also been teaching my boy how to dive into swimming pools while on holiday. Don't mind admitting that I burst into tears when I walked out of the hospital from the shock of hearing how close I had come to being paraplegic.

All OK now but it's defo clicky and I need to massage the area a lot or it seizes up. Something else to bother me as I age no doubt,  add it to the list. Lolz, eh?

I broke my ankle in a rock climbing fall in the mid 90s. I was near the ground moving between horizontal breaks, roped but there was enough slack in the system as I moved up to hit the ground. I went to A&E, got it x-rayed, was told there was no fracture. Physio was pretty basic, a couple of sessions and suggestion that I should walk as much as possible and work up to e.g. squash over the next couple of weeks. I went to my GP after 4 weeks as I still couldn't walk properly - almost no weight bearing. They told me to carry on with the physio exercises.

After 3 months a friend who was a physio told me something was wrong and recommended one of her colleagues. He started by tapping the underside of my heel with 2 fingers which was excruciating. I got another x-ray at that point which confirmed that I'd damaged the flap joint under the ankle (talocalcaneal) but as it was so long after the fall nothing could be done apart from fusion which has it's own complications. After another 3 months physio I was able to walk properly and run a little. I got an entry to the London Marathon, worked up to 13 miles but the recovery time for my ankle between runs  was 3 days, so I stopped.

I dropped the running and climbing, swapped to bikes and skiing. I could still do say a 5 mile run but would pay for it the following couple of days. Roll on 35 years and e.g. walking around a museum for a 4 hours will give me the same pain. Even a long bike ride will do it. I got another x-ray last year as it was getting a bit ridiculous. I've got "prominent talocalcaneal osteoarthritis" and a variety of lesser problems in that foot. Same option - live with it or fusion, I'm living with it.

I'm actually quite happy that I've got away with it for so long. In the OPs case I'd push as much as possible now for options and opinions. It may well be there are no good options but the later it's left the fewer there will be.

Good luck OP.

I crashed and sliced my knee open by slamming it into a tree stump last year. Hospital that did the stitches also carried out x-rays straight away but found nothing. Deep cut, got infected, patellar tendon partially torn, much swelling, wouldn't bend far at all.

As the range of movement wasn't getting much better after a few months I managed to persuade them to do a MRI. It turned out there was a compression fracture at the tip of the patella, which apparently takes some doing. It did eventually get better on it's own. Probably took a year before I could fully bend my knee, still tighter than bending the other one. There wasn't much they could have done, but good to know what the problem was.

Ambulanced in to A&E after a spill at Tunnel Hill, Deepcut...  After many hours in A&E and an X-ray it was decided that although I couldn't walk or stand on my own, I could just about stand and move just a bit on crutches....  nothing broken was the diagnosis and I was sent home and my wife collected me..... trolley to the car and son and wife unloading me into the house.   Son had previously come to the house and moved a bed into the lounge.    So, two days into this and me just about able to get from bed to toilet and sink downstairs. Then a call from the hospital to say they looked at my x-ray again and they thought my pelvis was fractured, could I come in for another x-ray.  Did this and it was confirmed that I did have a fractured pelvis. I was still sent home but I then started getting some treatment.

3 months later I was back on the bike.

I was racing downhill at Gethin (which is now Bikepark Wales) and during practise I had a massive OTB into the rocks just as you enter that gnarly rock garden that is now just after the tunnel.

I couldn't walk and got taken down the hill on a quad bike by the medics.

They thought it was probably soft tissue damage.

I ended up waiting until my mates had raced and then until we got back to Warwickshire to go to A&E.

They told me there that it was most likely soft tissue damage and to go home and take it easy.

After a week of trying to walk on it but being unable to, I went back to the hospital and only this time they gave me an x-ray.

Turned out I'd broken my tibial plateau.

Few years ago my dad fell down the stairs. Suffered a hematoma and degloved a couple of fingers. Was in hospital for a bit and was discharged with his cannula still in and some weeks later it was discovered he had broken his collarbone. No idea how it was missed. Anyway, I hope you fair better than my dad, he died about 6months later (unrelated causes).

I’m afraid this post isn’t what you’ll want to hear.

My other half had a bad one. Heel bone fracture correctly identified but they measured the amount of displacement incorrectly - the “consultant” claimed 1.5mm, on getting a 2nd opinion it was closer to 4mm. Displacement >2mm requires surgery to avoid very serious disability.
They also completely missed that he’d shattered his cuboid with ~6mm displacement on the joint surface with the heel bone. Any more than 1mm requires surgery.

Unfortunately we didn’t discover any of this until 12 weeks later when I requested his CT imaging, at which point it was too late for them to do anything about. He’s now out of the cast and can walk but has a permanent limp, says it hurts constantly (even with strong painkillers), and can’t ride his mtb on anything but uber smooth blue flow as anything else is too painful. He has a very physical job which we now know he won’t be able to do long term.

It’s currently being handled through lawyers, the consultant “left the health board” 2 days after we bought the missed diagnosis to their attention and is under investigation by the GMC.

I strongly recommend that you approach the health board to request all your imaging, notes, and all records of comms between doctors regarding your case. If you can afford it you can then take your imaging to a private ortho (you’ll want a specialist foot and ankle one) and get their opinion about the initial misdiagnosis and the current management plan. Then you can decide how to move forward.

Hopefully your case isn’t as bad as my other half’s, it’s completely destroyed my faith in the NHS tbh.

Didn't mention my fractured knee cap, got x rayed years later for another knee injury and the consultant commented on the fracture... missed on original x rayed.

I don't really trust Doctors or Consultants, way too many things in my life they said i didn't have or couldn't be that....

bad fall traversing a steep hill, initially diagnosed as a sprain and given a wrist splint rather than a cast.  Got a follow up call out of the blue a week later to say a standard review had identified a fracture and given option to come in for a cast. Stuck with splint and it healed absolutely fine.  Was probably sore for longer than it could have been but that was it, no sign of a buckle or anything noticeable.

CT scan

Why is it so difficult to post images now? It always used to be simple

Stubbed my little toe on a piece of furniture - ended up at 90 degrees from normal.
went to A&E - triage nurse says mleh, maybe dislocated, maybe broken let’s get an X-ray. Given it was Saturday morning I was surprised I didn’t have to wait very long. Got X-ray then waited for the dr.
dr calls me in, takes a quick look at my foot and says “yeah that’s clearly dislocated- the situation is this, if you like you can wait until I can get someone to give you an anaesthetic then wait for a bit more then I’ll pop it back in, or (if you’re strong) we can forego that and I’ll do it now - it’ll hurt a bit at first then it’ll be fine”

He sounds confident so agree to crack on

the noise of grinding bone I won’t forget, the pain neither. My language he won’t forget either

“You know what” he chirps “that might be broken, we should get that X-rayed”

its ****ing well been xrayed didn’t you look at the ****ing X-ray

Couple of taps on his computer and the X-ray comes up - now the closest I ever got to medical school was the Edinburgh uni halls of residence one night in 97 with 1st year dentistry student - but even I could see a clearly broken bone

Oh how we laughed!

Learning to ski on a dry slope, I fell over and caught a finger in the “carpet”.  That hurt, but I had paid for my lesson so carried on and after drove home.  I was still in pain in my hand at work the next day and a colleague who had started medical school but given up said “I reckon you have broken that, off to hospital”.  After a quick test to see if I was in pain (too right I was) I was sent for an X-ray and returned to await the results.  The A&E doctor turned up with a dozen trainee doctors, put the X ray up on the light box and asked for a diagnosis.  Obviously I knew what to look for, but the crack in my metacarpal stood out like a highlighter had been on it.  After several minutes and frankly ludicrously exotic suggestions for my problem I had to pipe up with the clue that I wouldn’t be opening the bowling for England in the near future.

I still don’t know when I broke my right collarbone, but it resulted in an extra couple of x-rays in 2005 when I had an OTB at the top of Sutton Bank and tore some rotator cuff muscles while trying to dissipate kinetic energy without rolling. Some are broken during childbirth supposedly, but I arrived via the sunroof. It might have been when I fell out of a bunk bed in my sleep in about 1991, and it perhaps explains some of my inability to throw well, and my very slightly lopsided physique.

Quite a few years ago at this time of year I was on my way down the Herepath from the Ridgeway into Avebury at the end of a 16 mile ride including Barbury Castle.
It’s downhill all the way, with a number of deep ruts in the chalk caused by agricultural traffic, and wet chalk can be very slippery. Got into one of the ruts, the bike started to oscillate while I was trying to control my speed, then the front wheel sort of went sideways and jammed in the rut, throwing me onto the ground, landing hard on my left elbow, slamming my shoulder into the side of my head. I’m not sure whether I had little stars going around my head, but it literally made my ears ring!
Picked myself up and rode down into Avebury, put the bike in the car, had a pint and went home.

Had a lot of discomfort in my shoulder, especially picking something like a rucksack up, so went to see my doctor, who wiggled my arm around, told me I’d done something, but I’m getting older, so what do I expect.

FFWD to earlier this year, and I’m in the bathroom looking in the mirror, and I rather belatedly notice a lump on my collarbone…

Yes, I know nothing can actually be done for a broken collarbone, but it would have been nice to have actually had it diagnosed by a so-called trained medical professional ten-twelve years ago instead of discovering it for myself.

Had an MRI to check out osteoarthritis issues in my wrists.

At the consultation the consultant says 'oh and where you broke your thumb looks ok, only mild arthritis there'.

Well I didn't know I'd every broken my thumb, the long bit in your hand, not the dangly bit, and I've had no pain or trouble with arthritis there either.

A CT scan of my broken pelvis showing a break right down from the top left of the picture right down to the hip socket. This was missed on the initial x-ray by the medical team who told me that it wasn't broken. Much as I wanted to believe them I asked for them to have another look as I couldn't be in so much pain from just bruising. Fortunately it healed itself after 6 weeks of resting. Didn't even need an operation

Ramsayneil....   Ouch!!! Hard to believe it just needed rest for 6 weeks. Amazing

Went over on my ankle playing indoor hockey, felt the top of my foot touch the floor.  After tapping up my shoe to drive home (it was my left foot so could still brake ok), took a trip to A&E.  Doctor takes a look at the swelling and sends me for an x-ray, get the results back and the doctor informed me that the ankle isn’t broken but my previous break has healed really well. Didn’t know I had broken it!

Same A&E a few years later, back in after badly twisting my knee playing hockey, doctor insisted it was only a sprain, got a private referral for an MRI and it turned out to be a complete rupture of my ACL and torn cartilage. Trained for and rode the coast to coast as part of the prep for my knee operation to help strengthen the muscles around the knee.

i hit the ground, but the bike was alright . The ambulance took me to MK hospital for the night, and the xray/docs report stated 6 cracked ribs and collarbone.

Feeling around in the next few days/weeks i found 3 more lumps not on the xray which must be 3more cracked ribs

I did something similar to Carbis, went over on my ankle, went to A&E to be informed that it was a bad sprain, but the old break wasn't particularly stable. What old break?? Ankle wasn't great for years afterwards until I sprained it badly again and the doc who xrayed it used words like "degenerating" with regards to my old break and referred me to my GP - who was all for telling me to live with it until I had an argument with her about the concepts of degeneration and preventative maintenance, at which point she huffed and referred me for physio. I got the impression the phsyio was surprised to have someone reasonably young and fit turn up! He retrained my brain to be able to balance on/trust that joint on uneven surfaces as well as strengthening it up and it's been fine ever since.

All the above indicates to me something I am aware of from my own ailments/accidents that Doctors GPs and Hospital types much prefer to send you on your way to let nature take its course.

It's a type of triage system. Everything is set up from the GP to the Hospital to slow down and stall getting access to the expensive stuff like Scans, MRI. I have this from the "Horses mouth" a local GP.

Collarbone missed at our local A&E. My wife is a radiographer, and told them at the time it was clearly broken. Took over a week to get a second official opinion, that it clearly was bust. By then it was apparently too late to do anything. Twelve years later it still gives me gyp now and then. I am guessing the first A&E realised I was a hopeless case, as I have never done any of the required exercises.

Everything is set up from the GP to the Hospital to slow down and stall getting access to the expensive stuff like Scans, MRI.

Definitely. Probably because the MRI machine is privately owned and operated, but in a trailer on the NHS hospital car park. That's the situation here anyway.

All my ailments (knees) lately have only got ANYWHERE as I paid for private scans and consultations. This has been invaluable and getting decision makers to proceed back in inward with the NHS.

It's mental really, and I count myself lucky that I can afford to be able to have done this (probably talking nearly 1.5k in cost).

Just like some of the posters above, there will absolutely be people hobbling around now with all manner of issues that could have been nipped in the bud through being listened to, scanned and having an actual expert interpret a scan.

Here's to everyone getting fixed!

Yesterday went to the doctors about on going joint issues, while I was there I asked about my right hand that is really giving me a lot of pain, had it x-rayed 18 months ago and told all fine, doctor couldn’t view my x-ray, but quick examination of my hand, and yes, there is very obviously a whacking great bony lump, very probably from a fracture that has not healed correctly.

In defence of the NHS in my most recent experience at A&E the medic was very thorough. I talked through all my injuries from a bike tumble with her. She then sent me off for x rays and a CT scan. When I got back she came and discussed all my fractures, 7 in total and correctly spotted a pneumo thorax. In my experience the NHS in Scotland are pretty good at getting you an x Ray, CT scan or MRI when needed.

Ankle, heard it snap whilst running. Couldn’t go to hospital for complicated reasons. Hobbled in agony for a few weeks. 4 years later it’s still swollen, lacks flexibility and occasionally painful.

T12 story

Or my pelvis and femur story...

Next off... im going the vets...

I can vouch for the recovery of pelvic fractures. MrsA bust hers big-time in an innocuous slip on a blue down front Avoriaz. Recovery involved months off work and a CT scan to confirm that the damage was far more extensive than the initial x-rays indicated.

I've also met ski instructors with similar injuries who have felt compelled to return to work way before they were healed.

Also; descending off Cribarth above Abercraf, the top end of the Swansea valley there are loads of lovely trails, old quarry tracks I think. A rather 'gung ho' mate decides to take the short line but is stopped by the tree stump hidden in the long grass. A massive ragdoll OTB but up he gets, all is fine. Then he decides it's not fine. Consensus now is a 999 call. No reception. Down I go to the village, call triple 9 and set things in motion. Return up the hill, get less than 300 m and meet him walking down. The midges were so bad he had to move.

In Morriston  hospital they identified four! breaks to his neck. The current one and another two he knew about. The other one remains a mystery but may be the result of Jack Daniels, a very silly decision and a ridiculously rocky descent into Pontarddulais. Lip smashed open and then once home scrubbed clean with a toothbrush prior to getting stitches by a mate's gf who was on shift at Singleton hospital.

Oldmanmtb - that is real rubbish and highly offensive to the professionals involved.

Medicine is not an exact science.  Mistakes happen and opinions differ.  Fractures can be difficult to spot particularly in small bones.

It is certainly true that if you can get fractures to heal with mini8mal intervention its better long term in most cases. All interventions carry a risk

In my experience the NHS in Scotland are pretty good at getting you an x Ray, CT scan or MRI when needed.

My experience as well.  I have had several urgent investi8gations over the last few years.  Saw the GP one morning, was in the hospital having CAT scans within 3 hours.  Negative of course.

Had a couple. Sprained my ankle (or so I thought) doing Brazilian jui jitsu training. Although it hurt like hell I could still walk/hobble on it so didn’t think much of it. Two weeks later of working 12hr shifts and walking the dogs it still wasn’t getting any better. Went to the Doctors to ask the nurse if there was anyway of speeding up the recovery. “Errm, you did go to A&E to get this checked out didn’t you?” “No, why?” “Well I suggest you do” I then drove to the hospital, had an X-ray and discovered it was broken, quite badly in fact. It was touch and go if I required metalwork. They couldn’t believe I was walking on it for so long and was very lucky. They said if I’d of gone over on it I would’ve been in real trouble. Got it plastered then had to tell the wife the good news that she’d have to leave work, get the bus to the hospital and drive us back home. That went down like a lead balloon.
The other one was this August bank holiday just gone. Hairline fracture of the pelvis this time. Out on a road ride and lost the front going down a greasy backroad. The pain was all in my groin area so presumed it was a bad groin strain. Next day I couldn’t walk at all so of to A&E again. X-ray showed no break so was sent home but to come back a week later for a check up. It was then, after looking at the X-ray again they discovered the crack. Spent the next six weeks doing naff all except sleeping and sitting on the settee stroking the dogs and watching crap TV whilst my long suffering wife took the dogs out three times a day as well as working full time. She’s a good egg….

X-ray showed no break so was sent home but to come back a week later for a check up. It was then, after looking at the X-ray again they discovered the crack.

the A&E doc is a generalist usually.  All X rays are reviewed by a specialist .  Thats who picked up the fracture

Twice. Scaphoid when in Canada, ended up wearing a brace to ride with as I was told it was a bad sprain, gave me grief for years afterwards & fundamentally changed my riding position on the bike (couldn’t hold my arm in the same spot).

Second time was a collar bone & sternum. Admittedly I did a great job on myself breaking a load of ribs, my shoulder blade & tore a load of tendons in the same crash, but that still gives me a massive amount of grief 8 years later.

It was an unfortunate accident at an EWS, came round a blind corner on a very fast bit of track, only to find the rider in front had bottled a gap & stopped on the lip, I tried to miss them but ended up taking us both out. I came off considerably worse.

I've only broken two bones. (Of my own, anyway.)

When I was 14 I hurt my left wrist playing rugby. Funnily enough it was the only time, doing any sport, that I ever thought "oh no! I'm gonna get hurt". I was diving over the line to score & the covering defender slid in on me as I did.

I showed it to my dad, a surgeon, who pronounced me to be fine and prescribed two aspirin. After three weeks of pain my dad relented & took me into his hospital where a broken scaphoid was revealed.

25yrs later I was riding my motorcycle in Manali in the Indian Himalayas. We'd been learning to Paraglide & my girlfriend had just broken her back in a crash & had to have back surgery before flying home. I was riding back to the paragliding school when a shoe-walla ran out into road in front of me & I hit him & came off. Luckily, he was okay but my left wrist was pretty painful.

I went to a chemist & got some Tramadol. That evening the 2006 World Cup started & I watched the game in a bar, drank about ten beers and took about ten Tramadol. It was still agony.

The next morning the guy that owned our hotel said he was also a doctor. (Indians generally tell you what they think you want to hear). He examined my wrist & said it probably wasn't broken but he knew a guy in the market who had an X-ray machine. As you do.

I found the guy and it was a stall where he sold stuff but he had a room to the rear with an old X-ray machine. He took the picture of my wrist and pegged it up on a line at the front of his stall whilst it dried. He examined it with me. "No broken" was his report.

I had three more weeks of riding with my German buddy to do up to Leh and then off road up to Tso Moriri on the Chinese border then down through Kashmir & eventually Delhi. I took a heap of Tramadol every day. Working the heavy clutch on my BMW GS was agony. Dropping the heavily laden bike in sand or in a river was tough to pick up with one good arm.

I flew home from Delhi and, this time, my dad was more considerate. He organised an X-ray for me.  Broken elbow, it turned out. The wrist was referred pain.

Who knew?

(I also had a completely ruptured Achilles once that a useless GP diagnosed as a "strain" so I spent two weeks walking around with a foot not attached properly before I had to have reconstructive surgery.)

Motorcycle crash 25 years ago. I was able to walk but yelped with knee pain as I stepped into the ambulance.

Busy Bank Holiday Monday, X-rays taken and diagnosed with a broken left fibia and swollen right ankle. Long temporary pot fitted, come back on Wednesday please. At the time I prodded the area that the nurse explained was broken and asked why it didn't hurt...

Absolute agony limping round on my 'good' leg till Wednesday came around.

Re-X-rayed, ashen faced radioligist explained that there was indeed nothing wrong with my potted leg. My 'good' leg was broken and my ankle displaced! At least that explained the pain.

There is no real morel to this story because shit happens and nobody died. If I had been better at riding motorbikes I wouldn't have been in A&E.

That and do your physio properly, your future depends on it. I suffered with regular swelling problems if I chased my kid round on a cold ankle until I ran a marathon 15 years later. It now gives me no bother at all.

Not quite the same but when I had an MRI scan on my spine everyone who looked at it pointed to a different vertebra about 4 away from the one that was causing the problems and said "when did you do that?". No idea.

My son had an x-ray on his ankle aged 35 after a football injury. The consultant pointed at something else and said "that's where it was broken a while ago". He was 6 weeks premature, feet first breech birth and came out with a very black and bruised foot. Those forceps can do some damage.

Starting to feel very lucky getting to 63 with only two broken bones. An arm after a fall as as a toddler and a scaphoid as a teenager.  In the subsequent half century involving rock climbing, motorcycling, hillwalking, running,  and loas of cycling, nothing. broken

My last trip to minor injuries was after a fall off a kitchen counter hitting a sharp table cornerwith my lower back  on the way down!!!!  Excruciatingly painfail but nothing broken.

I had a tumble mid lock down (yes it was irresponsible but not intentional). I hurt my shoulder after slaming tree.

After an xray I was told it was ligament damage and left with a sling and substantial pain.

Once week later I visited the specialist for a follow up. After another xray, it was found I had broken my shoulder blade, several ribs and collapsed a lung.

Ended up in hospital straight after for four nights to my lung inflated and MRIs to conclude how many ribs I had broken.

my story wasn't so bad

crashed at the weekend in a race

nade it halfway through work on Monday, and hand was aching really bad, couldn't grip properly

went to a&e, had an x-ray pretty quickly, they looked at it, said it was fine sent me back to work

half an hour later, i got a  phonecall, they said someone else had reviewed it & spotted a fracture in my hand, called me back and strapped it up

Two stories, one not a bone though.

Twisted my ankle badly in Summer '23 and it wasn't improving. Finally had an MRI scan and was referred to an ankle consultant surgeon chap, who indicated to me that I had not broken it this time, but had done so many years previously. I do recall 'spraining' an ankle when I was approx 9, and having a few days off school unable to walk. Maybe it wasn't sprained...

Second one was when I unmistakably snapped my Achilles tendon in 2010 (anybody who's had this knows when it snaps as the sound is so loud) and was told by the doc in A&E that it was just a sprain and to "walk it off". As it was MK hospital, a place I had had too many bad experiences with (awful place), I hobbled out and went straight to another (SMH), where they did the Thompson Test (basics) and immediately booked me in for surgery. 'Walk it off' my @rse!