One back, Two steps forward

Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Fri 4 Feb 2011 00:50
Friday 4th February 0804 local 0004 UTC

The Chinese New Year came in like an artillery attack on the Somme. From my hospital bed the firecrackers were exploding everywhere. It seemed from my side of the window as if the hospital was under bombardment.

Anyway I pushed the boat out a bit yesterday and got up out of bed and walked around. I know lots of you will say take it easy dah dah dah but the Doctor said it was fine and the sooner I got mobile the shorter the recovery time. I have one back again as the back is pinned solid with eight screws and two rods all bonded together with artificial bone graft there is no problem with that. There is the 6" wound to take care of though and that is still fitted with a bleed which seems to be putting out quite a lot of shall we say, liquid.

The care is excellent, professional caring and extremely attentive. Hygene standards too are high and there is a cleaner in my room at least four times per day.

Aparently after fitting the last screw in my back they tightened up the one in my head...... We'll see.

I know some of you have wondered why I was dealing with the serious issue of a broken back so light heartedly, but I was under no illusions at all of the touch and go nature of the
injury.

The doctors made me aware early on of the risk of paralysis if any of the shattered fragments of my vertibrae pressed into my spinal chord. The CT scan in fact already showed one fragment working it's way into the chord. This was the reason for the numbness and lack of feeling in my feet. Most of that has now disappeared. But some damage was done to the nerves and the remaining tingling will take a little time to repair.

The doctors before the operation monitored this situation frequently by checking for anal tension. I had to say to him finally if he did stick his fingers up there any more it probably would loose tension! He just took my word for it after that.

It was for this reason that I tried to organise International SOS to do an air evacuation rather than face the exposure to the fracture destabilising on a four hour ferry and ambulance trip. The air evacuation however could not be organised as their plane in Kuala Lumpur was already on a mission with no known end time, so I just had to do my best with the ferry and the ambulance.

So to summarise, of course I was acutely aware of the high risk but I was doing what I could to keep myself and everyone else around me positive. There is absolutely no up side to being negative so we don't do that.

In the meantime I can still walk and talk so I can get on with the work which I have to do. I always think that if you can either walk or talk there is some work you can do. The fact that I can do both gives me no excuse! So keep these business emails coming!