ARTHRITIC KNEE, a poem by Thomas Hoskyns Leonard

                                              

                                               

                                                        

                                                        ARTHRITIC KNEE

                                                        by Thomas Hoskyns Leonard

 

                                   Legs weak with lymphodema of Epilim fame,

                             The fat diabetic struggled home from Botanics' Open Book,

                              Needing a stick for a hook.

                              Outside Mosque larboard stump gave way,

                              Leaving him, D, like a scarecrow to sway.

                               Back in flat frantic as a bat,

                              As paramedics, dear G, and friends he called,

                               Rendering Patrocles most appalled.

                               But  D crawled to bedroom into a jug to pee, 

                               After a callous reply from flaky G.         

                               Phone from Purgatory rang in hall; 

                               D turned, twisted and cracked his knee

                                    In a mighty, sprawling, screeching fall,

                              Which by the snoopy NIMBY heard could be.

                               When Patrocles burst in D was prone on the floor,

                               Whereupon six paramedics were at the door.

                               Down the stairs protesting in a chair went D,

                               To eight days in Western all at sea.     

                                Doctors pondered hard and long,

                                But none were worthy of a gong.

                                Blood clot? Not a blot.

                                'Gout, and water on knee' opined fancy he.

                                 But when they stuck in the three foot needle, 

                                 The blood flowed out like pee.

                                  Fracture? Don't distract her!

                                  And the scans no tear in the knee could see,

                                  While the nurses taunted his liquid paraffin requests

                                  And the lymphodema he detests.           

                            

                                    Back in flat, Patrocles kills the moths and rats,

                                  While D on a Zimmer-frame flounders,

                                  Yells "And yours!" through window at cheeky bounders.

                                   Orthopaedics, Dick? 

                                  No fracture, you prick,

                        And Keating sends him away from Clinic Six bleating.

                        Several  agonising physio-free weeks later,

                        D  a sprained crucial ligament incorrectly self-diagnosed to doctor.

                        And now he the NHS website exercises painfully convolutes,

                        (While Patrocles plays his flute),

                         Wondering whether he'll with arthritis for e'er be a cripple,

                          Or merely a pain in the nipple.