01/11/2026
“𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝟗𝟗𝟗 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐰. 𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭. 𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥.”
Ok ok we had way more than 20 guesses!
Sorry it took me so long to get you the answer – the codeine the last few days TOOK ME OUT! It’s been a rough first week attending vettings from the horse shopping trip in between being laid up in bed unable to place my leg in a comfortable position.
Any tips for foot and ankle injuries please let me know!
𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐈 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐈𝐓!
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟏: (Embarrassing)
Walked up the stairs behind my housemate, Grace, after a dinner out.
Changed my mind on the last section because I wanted to put my slippers on (our stairs are on a turn in 3 sections).
Turned.
Placed my foot very oddly on the top step. It gave way and I felt a pop/snap.
A millisecond later I was upside down with my back up against the radiator.
Having fallen full bodyweight on my ankle.
So…snap, crackle, pop for both my foot and ankle separately! Ew! Falling down 3 steps 🤦♀️
Had to pick up my American clients in the morning ready for their last day of horse shopping.
So I screamed ‘Grace I’ve broken my ankle!’ and, as I am usually quite dramatic, she didn’t respond. She was busy dealing with the fact her dog had pee’d in her gym bag.
By the time she answered, unable to walk herself because she was laughing so hard, she suddenly realised I wasn’t joking and was very quick to get me some ice, make sure she took a video and took me to hospital. She was great! (Videos in the comments – worth it lol!)
I decided I needed an xray to know how much walking I could do the next day without further damage. 6 hours later I was told I was fine and sent home to ‘continue as I felt comfortable.’
Knowing I had a big day coming up, I begged the doctor for some crutches. He said no. I said I needed them so badly for tomorrow, that I could return them in the evening if he really needed that haha. He tried to say no again but my new A&E friends stepped in and between us we managed to negotiate some crutches!
Luckily, I didn’t injure my driving ankle, so 3 hours of sleep later, I picked the team up from the hotel to view horses! I did 7,000 crutch steps on day one and passed out in our final stop point in London at 1am on Sunday morning.
The leg felt unstable, crunchy and was consistently making me heave/gag as I was trying to wade across muddy fields all day. Eventually I had to give up and got helped through a fence by some very kind strangers to get back to my car!
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟐: Potentially more embarrassing
Thank god I was able to stay in my dad’s flat in London for the remainder of the weekend. I thought Sunday would be a day of Deliveroo-ing myself painkillers and food and catching up on sleep.
After my first attempt at making the odyssey to the bathroom (3 or so steps on a normal day), I realised I probably couldn’t even open the door for the Deliveroo driver and reassessed my plan.
My hands were so puffy and bruised from so much crutching around the previous day I really felt 3 limbs down lol.
I called my friend Siob and she was an absolute star, bringing me coffee, food and drugs in bed all day until we ventured to the sofa in the evening to enjoy our deliveroo dinner.
I had noticed my dodgy leg had been quite cold for a while, but I asked her to feel the difference between the two and it was clear that my injured leg from toes to knee was significantly colder than my other leg, which was normal temperature. It was now also starting to change colour.
I was SO tired, the thought of spending another night in A&E was so unappealing, so I asked Chat GPT, who was fully briefed on the whole injury, what to do.
“Call 999 right now. Do not wait. Do not try to get yourself to hospital.”
Come on Chat, surely I can just get an Uber there if I really have to go? I’m with my friend, and in Central London that’s like a 5 minute drive?
No. This could be a circulation emergency. Call them now. So I call 999 laughing and repeatedly saying “if you think this is an inappropriate call, please please hang up on me and I’ll make my way to A&E.”
They told me an ambulance would be there in 5 minutes!! I could not believe it!
Very frustratingly, and this makes me so angry – the ever under pressure NHS had taken on some new call handlers and they’d incorrectly categorised me as Category 1. The paramedics rushed in expecting to find a patient who was not breathing.
I literally could not believe it as I could not have been clearer that I was the patient and I was fine, and I sincerely, sincerely hope a true Category 1 was not missed because of me.
Assuming that was not the case though, it was a very fun experience! They lifted me into the ambulance strapped into a bed, fed me morphine and dropped us off in A&E, where Siob and I spent 4 hours waiting switching between sharing the wheelchair and the floor! St Thomas’s London is a great hospital, but we were very disappointed to learn that even Banbury has better 24/7 coffee/hot chocolate facilities!
They x-rayed my foot as well as my ankle, and said there is a small break in the foot, and a suspected torn ligament on the outside of the foot and ankle – I can feel it being weird and painful all the way to my knee!, with damage to the ligament on the inside of the ankle as well. Something feels really weird and horrible on the ball of my foot too, and my toes are bruised and purple. I need an MRI so I’ve joined the 5 million year waitlist for one of these yay.
Horse Transport could be a while but I’m working on it!
I cannot thank Abbie at AA Horse Transport enough for taking some of my jobs - with a smile as always - and doing such a brilliant job on them so far 😊
And thank you to all my lovely clients for being so understanding, Sam for having Huppy for me – I literally do not know what I would do without Sam, she is my hero. Even though I miss my dog dog SOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!! And every friend who has stepped in to ‘full time care’ me over the last week!
I can do 2 things – drive my automatic car with my good leg. And make it to the bathroom! And really that’s it – if I’m alone and need to feed myself, my only option is to go to a drive thru as I can’t even carry a cup of tea across the room on crutches lol!
Resting up and back soon gang! 🤦♀️
AA Horse Transport & Self Drive Ltd
Grace Taylor Equestrian
Siobhan Heneghan
Sam Ellis
