Caboose

Got back from my week of trying to learn how to snowboard, unfortunately not in quite the same state as when I left.

Oh yes, it’s one-handed typing time, I broke my shoulder (in two places) on the fifth day.

Some nice scenic photos of the Tignes area will follow soon, first I’ve got to sort out my insurance claim.

The rest of this post is the full story of what happened…

Thursday was the first full day after my snowboard lessons finished, so I had a bit of a lie in and set off on the Palafour chairlift (see the piste map). Once I had got to the top I made it about 100m down the slope before wiping out at speed and sticking my arms out to stop myself.

There was a nasty cracking sound, a sharp pain and I spent the next few minutes sitting there trying to work out how seriously I had hurt myself. I soon discovered my left arm wouldn’t bear any weight so I took off my board and started walking back down to Tignes Le Lac (it’s a long way).

I was pretty lucky in meeting Dugly about a third of the way from the bottom, he carried my board for me and helped me make my way to the medical centre in town.

Once I was at the medical centre there was a form to fill in, which Dugly did for me as I couldn’t use my left hand. Nobody seemed interested in what the injury was, if I had knocked myself out or any of the other usual questions. Instead there was a load of statistical questions about the type of boots and bindings I was using.

After quite a while of sitting about waiting one of the receptionists asked why I was there, it seems they had mislaid my form. They found it again and I moved through to wait outside the X-ray room.

The doctor and nurse at first seemed to think there was nothing wrong with me, their manner was more abrupt than could be excused by the language difficulties alone. Being ordered to hurry up while in the middle of the complicated and painful process of removing my jumper really didn’t impress me.

Once the X-rays were done the staff immediately became much more pleasant. I then had to phone Dugly to ask him to go off to the pharmacy to pick up a sling and some drugs.

After that it was twice daily injections of anti-inflammatories by the nurse until I flew back yesterday.

The costs were:

• consultation with doctor and nurse, x-rays: €137
• complicated velcro sling and drugs: €116
• 3 injections by nurse: €20

(by the way, those are supposed to be Euro symbols above, if you can’t see them there’s something wrong with your OS or browser setup)

Now I just have to sort out getting the money back from my insurers.