20th December 2017

At about 17:30 pm on the evening of 3rd December 2015 me, my motorbike and my legs parted company. The fall and the subsequent tumbling down the North Circular Road severed my spinal cord and I suffered what is called a complete transection of the cord at T5 – thoracic vertebrae 5 – which is roughly in a line with my nipples. As a result I am now consigned to a wheelchair as I have absolutely no feeling below my chest. This makes for all sorts of problems, physically, physiologically and emotionally, all of which will be commented on as this blog progresses but for now let’s just assume that life as I knew and loved it ended, abruptly!

I have little recollection of the accident but do remember asking a bloke to lift the bike off my legs so I could get off the road – I knew something was wrong when he said the bike wasn’t on my legs – bad sign #1. I then remember talking with the paramedic in the ambulance, but he didn’t give anything away either – bad sign #2. After that nothing, nothing until the middle of January 2017, when I sort of staggered my way out of some extremely strange, I have no doubt morphine induced, dreams. It’s good stuff that morphine, it takes the sting out of pretty much everything. I wasn’t truly compos mentis until well into February and then I began to learn what had happened between then and then as it were.

The good people at A&E in the Royal London hospital saved my life, for which I should be eternally grateful – but I’m not – as I hope you’ll begin to understand as this stream of consciousness gabble develops. I was due to go under the neurosurgeons knife on the Friday to have my broken spinal column stabilised but I missed that slot as someone else was helicoptered in (literally) whose legs they could save and I was rescheduled for the next Monday. Unfortunately I was struggling breathing so I was put in an induced coma as I couldn’t be moved – and then I caught pneumonia! By the Thursday the medics had a choice – risk operating with the pneumonia or risk not operating because of the pneumonia. Either decision could have seen me off but they operated – for 7 hours – and here I am – bastards! On Friday, i.e. within 24 hours of the operation, I was taken off the ventilator and then my gorgeous wife Karen watched my condition seriously decline.

A little mention needs to made here about what Karen was having to cope with – home to the Royal London was a good 90 minute journey each way, in the middle of a cold, wet winter but my darling wife hardly ever left my side through it all. The support of family, colleagues, good friends and neighbours made it easier but she still had to endure a miserable time and for that I can only thank her for her love and devotion – thank you sweetheart – I love you.

OK, back to the story: so from the moment I was taken off the ventilator Karen watched as I struggled to breathe, begging the medics to stick the tube back in my throat. They kept resisting her pleas saying it was better that I didn’t have a tracheotomy but by Wednesday morning they decided to take notice of Karen and told her that I was scheduled for the tracheotomy that afternoon. Unfortunately my body had other ideas and I had a heart attack instead. Eventually I was shuffled off to Bart’s Hospital where I had a stent fitted very late on the Wednesday night and then taken back to the Royal London. Fun and games again – multiple arrhythmias and galloping blood pressure problems saw me back in Bart’s to have a pacemaker. Back at the Royal London they still resisted giving me a tracheotomy as I needed theatre time (my double chin meant they couldn’t do me at the bed by all accounts!). It got done eventually and was a cause of some concern for a while as my move to phase 2 of my recovery programme, transferring to a rehabilitation unit, was dependent on being able to breathe unassisted. Oh, and while I was on the ventilator I was nearly killed by one particular agency nurse on 2 occasions because he didn’t know how or when to inflate/deflate the cuff – it’s a medical thing but with the cuff ‘up’ it closes the airway and the ventilator helps breathing – cuff ‘up’ and vent ‘off’ means a big purple face and no oxygen! We got him sent off for some refresher training.

Unfortunately all my heart problems saw me on lots of anti-platelet and blood thinning drugs which prevented them being able to surgically fix my smashed up right shoulder and broken right arm – I didn’t mention that one did I? Just a minor complication so no big deal – well it is really, I’m just being brave. It’s over 2 years ago now since the accident and it’s still not been fixed, but more about that later as my prosthetic reverse shoulder replacement is scheduled for 19th February 2018 here in France.  Be warned – the video clip is graphic and not for the squeamish.

By the middle of March the Royal London had done all they could for me (and my thanks to you all – a truly amazing establishment – I can’t wait for Boris to turn up with that big fat cheque he’s promised them as a part of the NHS!) and after a week in our local hospital Whipps Cross (another superb establishment) I was transferred to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore for my rehabilitation.

Stanmore is a wonderful place, relatively small and self-contained with everything needed to help people like me to learn how to live and operate without things like bladders and arses that empty when they feel like it and legs that don’t work. My wrecked shoulder means I can’t push myself about so we’ve had to buy an electric chair (oh the times I wish we’d got that old one from Alcatraz!) and I can’t transfer myself off and on the chair into bed or onto my potty chair for a poo or a shower so we’ve got a crane as well – if anyone needs a hoist to pull a car engine out I know a man who can lend you one.

The care and attention I got from the staff at Stanmore – the doctors, nurses, physio’s, occupational health team and the rehab team – could not be faulted and that I can do anything at all is very much down to their guidance and encouragement and I’ll write at more length later about Stanmore. Regardless, I can’t do anything, whatever it might be, without it being facilitated for me. The practical problems Karen and I both face every day will be picked up on as this blog develops and again I have to thank Karen for everything she does for me – she never signed up to be my carer but I couldn’t ask for a better one. Thank you sweetheart.

I was released back into the real world in the middle of June 2016 and returned home to Walthamstow but we had realised very early on that Karen’s house could not be adapted to meet my needs. Fortunately we had an alternative as, back in 2013 when I left BT, we had bought ourselves a house in beautiful rural France. We had planned to retire there but circumstances changed things. While I was in Stanmore Karen arranged and oversaw the installation of a lift so I could get from the kitchen up to our bedroom – a massive achievement helped by the fact that not only is my wife beautiful, dedicated and persistent but also very clever and a fluent French speaker. Karen also arranged for a second back door put in so I can get from the garden into the house. All of this has cost but fortunately we have been helped enormously by my employers – Inchcape Shipping Services – who have been tremendous in their support, to Karen and my kids all the time I was in hospital, and to Karen and me since my release. Thanks to all concerned, but especially Dan Smith, a great bloke and boss.

So here we are then, living in France, getting looked after by the French social and healthcare services. There’s plenty more to say but you’ll have to wait for the next instalment – where I’ll regale you, maybe, with my personal Brexit fears (I’ve got plenty of very real concerns), French bureaucracy (it’s not as bad as you might have been led to believe) and the delights of good red wine at less than 4 euros a bottle. Thanks for staying with me so far. Feel free to comment.

Have a great Christmas and I’ll catch you again in 2018.

Jem