Nicki Minaj has a lot to answer for!

It all started 6 weeks ago when The Pink Ladies were just finishing an epic road cycle in The Peak District after 30 miles!!

At the end of our cycle, I toppled over INTO the busy road near my house, because I couldn’t quickly move my foot fast enough off the flat pedal. My ‘stroke of luck’ was that it was only a slow, driving motorist who was about to run me over, as opposed to an unstoppable, huge lorry!

The result:

My flat (as opposed to dropped) handle bars jabbed right into my right rib cage which gave me the worst winding I’d ever had. I sat on the curb, with my pal, as I struggled to breathe in any air, for what felt like 2 minutes! Needless to say my ribs were VERY painful, as I assumed they’d been badly bruised. Well I am ‘doctor Kate’ afterall!!!!

Fast forward 4 WEEKS of trying not to sneeze!

My daughter and I went to see Nicki Minaj sing in Sheffield at the Arena. I did refuse to wear the wig and eyelashes, but I did wear my black, heeled ankle boots and felt quite excited about seeing a live concert!

Can you believe some of the hardened fans slept in chilly, industrial Brightside, just to try to be at the front of the ‘mosh pit’?

Well the concert was full of her obligatory swearing (I didn’t know that previously) and preaching about how the mainly, copious teenagers should reserve their ‘cookies’ for the right man!!! She was pointing to her own groin at this point. (I think us mums were in the tiny minority that night.) I couldn’t help but notice the range of high heels around that night, as the teenage wannabes tottered, like me, in heels which were only 1/3 as high as theirs.

By the time we left, it was cold and late and bed beckoned for both of us. I negotiated an upward sloping, muddy curb, but I fell in the darkness with my right arm outstretched upwards. You see my brain doesn’t tell my hand, (or my cycling foot) fast enough to move, so that I can help break my falls. The result, was that I landed very heavily and subsequently cried like a baby!

The next morning my shoulder was very, very tender. I mean I couldn’t even dress or straighten my hair! (Cue the appearance of the fourth member of the 80’s Hair Bear Bunch!) But I carried on in true British Bulldog (a nod to 007) style for a week.

However, ‘doctor Kate’ succumbed to seeking professional medical advice 6 days later. (Something I had resisted, because of my embarrassment and dislike of hospitals. especially A & E, where I’ve been more times than I care to remember in the last 2 years! (In fact, they even have my special chair with my own name on!)

I answered the obligatory ‘name, date of birth…, questions’ with the lovely male nurse, who then asked,

“Any medical history?” to which I looked him straight in the eye and truly said,

“How long have you got….?

“Seriously, I had a brainstem stroke with locked in syndrome on 7th Feb 2010 and was in the Northern General hospital for 8 months.”

bizarrely, his own wife ‘Debbie,’ who I remembered, nursed me in ICU!!! (Small world, still, I sold two more books- www.gonnaflynowbook.com).

Well, the long story is that I not only I had fractured my right shoulder, but the x-rays revealed I’d fractured my ribs cycling, 4 weeks earlier too!

Yesterday, Mark and I went to see Calendar Girls at Buxton Opera House. I was sure I’d booked for the evening performance in the Dress Circle no less. however, and rather fortunately, we spotted that our tickets were only valid for the dress circle, ‘silver surfer’ MATINEE performance!!!

Suffices to say it was brilliant.

However, I was reminded, once again, that I wasn’t ‘normal’.

I tottered into the bar in my black, low ankle boots, (rather resembling a transvestite who needs more practise walking in heels), as the bar manager commented:

“You look like you’ve already had a few?”

He must have thought I looked totally inebriated, (I mean we were with the silver surfer brigade and it was two in the afternoon) when I ordered my SMALL glass of red wine.

Other morals of my life:

1. Don’t make judgements about people!

2. Keep practising walking in heels!