Day 2 of mobile bloging
Wow what a day. Non stop packing boxes and sorting paperwork all day.
No time for that run but then i am exhausted anyway. I have had a great workout lifting some very heavy bags and boxes.
Another million things to do tomorrow and dad is proving hard work as his alzeihmers has progressed quite a bit since January.
4 more days to go.
If anyone knows how Dougal is please comment on the blog or send it to me in an email please as i only got to day 2 on his recount and i cannot get to his blog and his email address will not work, thanks.
Until tomorrow...
3 comments:
Hey Andrew!
Dougal is up to PArt 4 in the series and is now back in his home town. Part 4 ended with the doctor telling him he has Septacaemia so that's not too good.
According to the comments/responses on his blog, he is on the mend now.
Part 3 (I'm sure Dougal won't mind)
Emergency medical staff are AMAZING. As we rolled into Greenacres hospital in Port Elizabeth a team was waiting, Nuerosurgeon included. Bumping out of the ambulance and into a new bed, wearing a back surfing rash vest, black and blue board shorts and half of the sand on the beach, actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The morphine was working big time and by that time I thought every body was a cool dude. Drugs do work people. ;-)
Staight to ex ray and cat scan. Lying still in the cat scan machine also wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Drugs again. From there to Hi Care and my home for the next few days.
The nuerosurgeon appeared at the side of my bed and out of my very limited peripheral vision looked like a a nice young man...until he started talking.
"You have very serious injuries....have smashed several cervical vertibrae and have what we call a hangmans fracture, we need to do major surgery."
Now folks...do your own research on Google, don't take it from me....people DO NOT survive a Hangmans fracture. Why do you think it's called a hangmans noose...coz it's Guaranteed to kill people.
The surgeon said he needed to stabilise me before surgery and proceeded to drill holes into my head. Lovely, like I havn't had enough trauma. The scafolding followed and I was left looking like and exhibit in some new age art gallery...Mohawk haircut included.
Following stabilisation and a catheter...ouch... I was scheduled for major surgery 2 days later.
I am a very active guy and lying very still on my back for 2 days was a lesson in discipline in itself but I got through it.
2 days later at 7.30 in the evening I sad goodbye to my new friends in Hi Care and was pushed to theatre. The answer to your question is..the nuerosurgeon said he works better in the evenings. Cool let's go.
After a preliminary chat with the anaethesthetist and a suck on some stuff in a mask he gave me , I was intubated and disapeared into the land of nod.
5 and a half hours later at half and hour past midnight, I heard a voice. "Mr Macdonald, Mr Macdonald...are you awake. I came around slowly and the very chilling next question was " can you feel your hands and feet."
"I can" I answered without thinking about the heaviness and extreme importance of that simple question and with that I was wheeled back to Hi Care.
Game over? - successful? - not by a long shot.
THERE WAS MUCH WORSE TO COME
look out for Part 4 tomorrow,
Part 4
The surgeons said that my upper body strength was a major contributing factor to my still being on the planet. NOW we all know for SURE that regularly spending time in the gym is the right thing to do.
I was healing nicely and it was time to airlift me back to my home in Johannesburg. Arrangements were made and I found myself back in an ambulance and on my way to the Port Elizabeth airport.
Lying in a stretcher in the middle of a commercial airliner is akin to David Blaine and his goldfish bowl stunt. Everyone stares at you, trussed like a chicken, as they walk past, clucking in sympathy for their perception of my plight. They had removed six seats in order to fit me in.
A shot of morphine and the trip was a breeze... we landed in JHB two hours later and after another ambulance trip I was hapily esconced in a private ward at Sandton Clinic.
My JHB nuerosurgeon came to see me and ordered some blood work to be done. He returned the next day with shocking news.
You have Septacaemia...we are going to have to operate again....open you up and scrub the infection out.
Yipee, something else to look forward to.
Part 5 tomorrow
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