Fixed back
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Thu 3 Feb 2011 03:58
Gong xi pa chai! It is Chinese new year today and I am in hospital in Penang.
Now that I have had what appears to be a successful operation I can explain just a little about the dangerously critical condition I was in after my injury and a little more about what happened.
I was flung at force off the back of the moto crosser and though I have had this kind of fall many times off road over the 33 years I have been riding motorcycles I have never suffered a serious injury before.
On Tuesday I was unlucky in that I landed flat on my back across the broken branch of a tree which was lying on the ground. I broke the branch and the branch broke my back.
At first I thought possibly my back was just bruised but I quickly realised something serious was amiss. I tried to stand but could not. I almost slipped into unconciouness several times. My right leg initially was numb and then my left leg became progressively number. I hobbled crawled and was supported on either side by a couple of the motocross hirers staff who my riding buddy had called to assist. I was not too far off the road but we had to work our way through a stream and of course over rough ground to get to the road. From there I was taken in the back of a small car to a clinic. This trip was excrutiatingly painful - pain like I have never even conceived of before in my life. It was a very long twenty minute journe. From there I was transferred to the Langkawi General hospital who did x- rays and a CT scan confirming what they made as a provisional diagnosis.
The broken back was dangerously unstable as the vertibrae was "burst". This means that the bone was shot to pieces and the fragments were at risk of going walk about. Out from the spine would be bad enough but one fragment was pressing into the spinal chord.
Langkawi coul not do an MRI and like most provincial hospitals did not have the expertise in specialised spinal trauma surgery. I did not fancy the trip in ambulance, then ferry then another two hour ambulance trip to get me to Penang so we contacted International SOS to try and get a specialised air ambulance evacuation done. They could not get the logistics together in time and I could not afford to leave the fragile spine vulnerable to any movement at all so I had to arrange for a ferry charter to get me to the mainland where the Penang hospital would have an ambulance waiting to take me to the specialised spinal surgeons hospital.
The journey, particularly the
Ambulance to Penang was extremely uncomfortable to put it mildly.
Anyway having got to the Penang hospital they scanned me and after paying and signing all the various disclaimers we went into theatre.
There I had my back opened up through a 6" opening and two rods and eight screws fitted.
I will try to get up today and start moving as my back though extremely painful is now stronger than it was before!
I will keep you posted as to my plans for our circumnavigation.