It may read as though I'm skipping days throught this blog, I'm writing it from a diary my mom kept whilst I was in hospital to keep track of what happened when, for the solicitors.
These were a stressful few days (everyday was but these more so...). On Wednesday the 5th September DAY 18 in hospital, my Vacum dressing was removed from my back (full thickness burn and graft) again. Once again this happened out of nowhere for me as a team of doctors, students and a consultant came into my room and talked about me to eachother while my nurse came in as fast as possible to try and get down what they were doing, so that I would know and so it would also be in my notes! They made me sit forward for this which was marginally better than being rolled but I had to hang on to my nurse to hold myself up and it killed my back, my pelvis, my legs everything. The removal itself hurt a lot, they peeled it off pretty fast but the thing is completley, air and water tight so it sticks pretty hard. They peered at the burn and muttered to themselves that it didnt look good 'here or here' but was probably 80% taken. That means 80% of the skin stapled onto the burn had survived and was doing well. They re-dressed it with a fabric dressing and special pads. They also pulled the dressings off my head, shoulder and hip and left them open for the nurse to try and figure out what they wanted doing with them! That was the first time I had seen my shoulder and hip injuries and they were pretty nasty. They called it 'road damage' or 'road burns' and basically where I had been dragged 10m under a car the tarmac had ripped through my jeans and 100% leather jacket and basically dragged and rubbed big patches of skin off me. My hip skin was hanging off and so was stitched back on and I have large areas of scar tissue which were once essentially gaping holes. The same happened to my head, my helmet was driven over and ripped up at some point and my scalp was rubbed away to my skull on the right side. Hense the hair removal, LUCKILY my hair has grown back through some of the scar tissue on my scalp and so they can cut out the remainder of scar tissue and pull it together to create a straight line scar. Which if you'd seen my head in A&E should be absolutley amazing!
On Friday 7th September my wrist was comfirmed broken. One of the first things I recall when I came out of the coma was telling the nurses my wrist hurt (I couldnt feel my lower body so it didnt hurt at that time) they told me it was probably just a sprain because they had done a full body scan...Nope 3 weeks later it was 100% broken and put in plaster! Meaning I only had one un-damaged are (my left arm).
Monday 10th September was heartbreaking really. It was DAY 23 and I was told I may be able to be transferred to a nearer hospital if I carried on progressing well, I was desperate to go home and really hoping for that. I met Mr VN (Im not sure if Im allowed to use his full name so I wont!) this day, he is a very senior burns and plastics consultant, he's also a wing commander in the army and runs private plastic surgery clinics in london. He had been told about me and wanted to take over as my burns consultant. He looked at my back, didn't order someone else to take off the dressings and actually spoke TO me! Sadly he took one look at my back and was absolutley certain the graft had completley failed and that the wound was becomming extremley infected. He was furious that someone had looked at it and told us it was 80% taken becuase it was 0% taken. They told me I'd have to go straight onto antibiotics, have my back treated everyday and when it was clear repeat the whole skin graft procedure. I was completley devastated I couldnt believe any of this had happened and just wanted to go back and never leave the house that day. I still do.
Showing posts with label Coma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coma. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Monday 3rd September...No more Catheter or PCA Plenty of infection...
This post is quite personal, they all are but I think bodily functions are always more embarrassing to talk about! I'm writing it anyway because this blog is also a way of me keeping a diary because I keep forgetting to actually write in mine (Im using it to write these because we had to keep one for the solicitors from day one). Also I want to capture every detail because these sort of things don't cross peoples minds when they think of crashes, so if you don't want to know about me going to the toilet by all means don't read it haha
3rd September over two weeks since the crash. I had spent all of this time with a 'urinary catheter' this was put in when I arrived as it was pretty obvious I wasnt going to be able to go to a toilet anytime soon. Also while I was in a coma I was being pumped with fluids so obviously your bladder still needs to empty but you cant go so the tube goes all the way into the urethra (don't worry I wont be attatching any photos! aha) and continually drains into a box/bag. This stayed in for so long because my injuries were so severe i could not even use a bed pan regularly. But after over two weeks it had to come out because of the high infection risk. I was terrified. I thought it takes a few nurses and a lot of pain to get from my bed onto the commode chair and if theyre busy they wont answer my buzzer quickly. Plus I hadn't felt the need or gone for a wee in over two weeks, I think I forgot that you don't suddenly need the loo then wet yourself...So anyway they took it out at midnight (not something you want to be woken up for) I don't know if it hurt going in as I was in a coma but it stung coming out! You have to pee within six hours or you need another put in and I went at 5.55am I like to live on the edge! Anyway it wasn't as bad as I thought, I had a commode (basically a chair with a hole in that you can fit a pot under to be used as a toilet) luckily while I was in hospital the commode chair actually fitted over the toilet in my 'en-suite' so once I was on it the nurse could just push me in and it was basically the same as using the toilet I just had to buzz for them to come and get me out. They also had to pull my bottoms up/down for the first week because I couldn't move to lift or adjust like you normally could. Actually it wasn't even embarrassing I was so weak, so vulnerable and in constant agony I really didn't care. I didn't care when I had to be bed bathed naked and rolled over so someone could wash my back and I didnt care that someone had to wipe my ass at 19. But think about that when you think 'I'll just speed through here I'm going to be late' or think about showing off in your car. I didnt care because I didnt have the ability to care at that point.
My PCA (patient controlled analgesia-morphine) was also taken away. Funnily enough they don't really like you to be filling yourself with an opiate for more than two weeks! Luckily I was still allowed Oramorph (drinkable morphine) whenever I wanted it because jesus did I need it. Skin stapled to a huge burn on your back, countless broken bones burst liver and road burns really fucking hurt. Plus my donor site on the back of my thigh was really starting to hurt...when my nurse took the dressing off it was pretty clearly infected! With pseudomonas to be presise.
This meant I had to have betadine soaked gauze and a new dressing put on it and more antibiotics! Betadine either is iodine or has iodine in it (I cant remember!) but that means its bright orange and soaks through everything!
DRIVE SAFE, George xxx
3rd September over two weeks since the crash. I had spent all of this time with a 'urinary catheter' this was put in when I arrived as it was pretty obvious I wasnt going to be able to go to a toilet anytime soon. Also while I was in a coma I was being pumped with fluids so obviously your bladder still needs to empty but you cant go so the tube goes all the way into the urethra (don't worry I wont be attatching any photos! aha) and continually drains into a box/bag. This stayed in for so long because my injuries were so severe i could not even use a bed pan regularly. But after over two weeks it had to come out because of the high infection risk. I was terrified. I thought it takes a few nurses and a lot of pain to get from my bed onto the commode chair and if theyre busy they wont answer my buzzer quickly. Plus I hadn't felt the need or gone for a wee in over two weeks, I think I forgot that you don't suddenly need the loo then wet yourself...So anyway they took it out at midnight (not something you want to be woken up for) I don't know if it hurt going in as I was in a coma but it stung coming out! You have to pee within six hours or you need another put in and I went at 5.55am I like to live on the edge! Anyway it wasn't as bad as I thought, I had a commode (basically a chair with a hole in that you can fit a pot under to be used as a toilet) luckily while I was in hospital the commode chair actually fitted over the toilet in my 'en-suite' so once I was on it the nurse could just push me in and it was basically the same as using the toilet I just had to buzz for them to come and get me out. They also had to pull my bottoms up/down for the first week because I couldn't move to lift or adjust like you normally could. Actually it wasn't even embarrassing I was so weak, so vulnerable and in constant agony I really didn't care. I didn't care when I had to be bed bathed naked and rolled over so someone could wash my back and I didnt care that someone had to wipe my ass at 19. But think about that when you think 'I'll just speed through here I'm going to be late' or think about showing off in your car. I didnt care because I didnt have the ability to care at that point.
My PCA (patient controlled analgesia-morphine) was also taken away. Funnily enough they don't really like you to be filling yourself with an opiate for more than two weeks! Luckily I was still allowed Oramorph (drinkable morphine) whenever I wanted it because jesus did I need it. Skin stapled to a huge burn on your back, countless broken bones burst liver and road burns really fucking hurt. Plus my donor site on the back of my thigh was really starting to hurt...when my nurse took the dressing off it was pretty clearly infected! With pseudomonas to be presise.
This meant I had to have betadine soaked gauze and a new dressing put on it and more antibiotics! Betadine either is iodine or has iodine in it (I cant remember!) but that means its bright orange and soaks through everything!
DRIVE SAFE, George xxx
Sunday, 24 March 2013
INJURIES...
I thought I would add a basic list of all my injuries for anyone interested...
- Broken Left Femur (thigh) - snapped in half and flipped over itself requiring bone removal and plates and screws.
- Shattered Pelvis - Six breaks around the pelvis in the pelvic ring and an acetabular fracture on the right side (the socket of the hip joint which is broken when the head of the femur is forced into it) which I now know to be quite rare and usually requires hip replacement in the future...
- Sacral fracture - Fractures of the sacrum (base of the spine above the tail bone)
- Spinal fracture - Fracture of the lumbar 5 section of the spine.
- Road Burns - I aquired second degree road burns to my right shoulder, right hip, chest and right side of my head from being dragged by the car. These went through my leather jacket and jeans. My hip had to be stitched shut and the skin at the top of the burn was completley open.
- Broken right wrist - Only acknowledged 3 weeks after the accident.
- Right anterior clavicular dislocation - Dislocated collar bone (same as Joss's inury) also only ackowleged weeks after the accident.
- Lascerated Liver - My liver was literally burst as my liver consultant put it...
- Split Nose - The left half of my nose was ripped away and amazingly stitched back on
- Deviated Septum - the middle part of the nose has been bent out of shape from the force
- Hole to left side of chin - Pretty self explanetory, from the chin strap of my helmet being pulled off with force. (if we had tightened the strap that day as we nearly did, my aw would of been pulled off my face)
- Detatched Lip - My lower lip was ripped away from my gums
- Full thickness Burn to my Back - My back was stuck to the cars exhaust pipe leaving me with a full thickness burn which needed grafts.
- Deep Grazing - To my cheeks, arms and legs.
- Both Lungs filled with fluid - Had lung drains put into both lungs.
- Black eyes - Not very significant but hey I've never had black eyes before!
- Fractured Jaw - Acknowledged 4 months after the crash when I returned to the maxillofacial team because I still had a lot of pain chewing (no wonder) and the lovely doctor had another look at my initial MRI and CT scans focusing on my jaw.
Monday 20th - Tuesday 21st August - COMA...
On the SUNDAY night I was found a bed on the intensive care unit at the Queen Elizabeth and recieved my first blood transfusions as I had lost a horrific amount of blood, my younger brother Kasper saw me that night which would of been so horrible to see. I was in a coma but they couldn't shut my eyes fully as my face was so so swollen. He went home with my stepdad while they stabilized me and my mom stayed by my bed. He ran to my bedroom and sent my teddy bear 'Freddie' back to the hospital. YES I'm way too old for a teddy bear I am 20 but I don't care he is the best thing ever..I was left in a coma and put on a life support machine for several life saving reasons, As a way of preventing my body from going into shock and my organs shutting down, It is also a way of controlling brain swelling - I attained a massive external head injury and if my brain had swelled too much I could of been left severley brain damaged. I also had bilateral (both sides) lung drains put in as my lungs were full of fluid and I was essentially drowning from the inside.
On the MONDAY I remained in a coma, I am assuming this is when my family were told my injuries. (I will put a list of those at the bottom of this post) My left thigh was completley snapped in half and had been flipped over itself so I was taken down to theatre that day. A large section had been destroyed by the car essentially grinding it to dust so they used a metal plate and screws to hold the two ends in place with a big gap in the middle of them. I am told I was in theatre most of the day and this is when I recieved another blood transfusion. Joss came to hospital this day which he found really hard, you can't imagine what someone you love would look like after a collision like that and on a life support machine.
On the TUESDAY I woke up. The day I think most of my friends found out what happened. My blood pressure had dropped dangerously low on monday night so they were forced to reduce my sedation. I don't know the medical way or how I actually woke up but this is what I was aware of...Being in a coma is just nothing you dont dream or anything you dont see black it's just nothing. Suddenly I dreamt that I pulled something out of my throat and a few seconds later I did grab the intubation tube and pull it out (this probably happened a lot slower than I think) I opened my eyes and all I could see was spot lights and heads above me. One of them was talking to me while others tried to sort machines out and put oxygen over my face. I remember them saying 'You've been in an motorbike accident Georgia, you're in hospital' I was adament I was dreaming as I have a lot of lucid dreams where I know I'm dreaming. They kept telling me I wasnt dreaming but would you believe it? I didn't accept it was real but asked if Joss was dead. I thought if I'm like this he must be dead. They called my mom and I thought when she arrived I'd wake up...nope. I desperatley wanted to sit up I thought if I sat up it would be like on the telly I'd be sat up eating grapes...nope. They couldn't sit my bed up for hours as some of the breaks in my pelvis and spine were so close to my spinal cord they needed a specialist consultant to confirm if I could be paralyzed or not. So I was lay totally flat with a neck brace on for hours. I still hate lying totally flat now. I can't explain what it was like really, I was concious but I don't remember much of it, I couldn't move at all, I was scared but couldn't explain what of, I had a lot of panic attacks. I had oxygen pipes in my nose and a cathater (tube that goes into the urethra that contunually empties your bladder, aswell as countless IV's for fluids, morphine and other pain relief. I was having hallucinations which turned out to be an allergic reaction to tramadol, I could see rats everywhere and could see through my eyelids, I didn't sleep at all. My nurse for that day Liz was amazing, she kept saying 'we'll give you a lovely wash', that wash was the worst thing ever. I was allowed to be rolled to the left which they had to do to wash me, I cannot explain the pain that caused. Being rolled onto your side with a smashed pelvis and onto a destroyed thigh...I screamed but it wasn't a controlled scream at all it just came out it was excrutiating..I'll carry on with ITU later...drive safe, George x
On the MONDAY I remained in a coma, I am assuming this is when my family were told my injuries. (I will put a list of those at the bottom of this post) My left thigh was completley snapped in half and had been flipped over itself so I was taken down to theatre that day. A large section had been destroyed by the car essentially grinding it to dust so they used a metal plate and screws to hold the two ends in place with a big gap in the middle of them. I am told I was in theatre most of the day and this is when I recieved another blood transfusion. Joss came to hospital this day which he found really hard, you can't imagine what someone you love would look like after a collision like that and on a life support machine.
On the TUESDAY I woke up. The day I think most of my friends found out what happened. My blood pressure had dropped dangerously low on monday night so they were forced to reduce my sedation. I don't know the medical way or how I actually woke up but this is what I was aware of...Being in a coma is just nothing you dont dream or anything you dont see black it's just nothing. Suddenly I dreamt that I pulled something out of my throat and a few seconds later I did grab the intubation tube and pull it out (this probably happened a lot slower than I think) I opened my eyes and all I could see was spot lights and heads above me. One of them was talking to me while others tried to sort machines out and put oxygen over my face. I remember them saying 'You've been in an motorbike accident Georgia, you're in hospital' I was adament I was dreaming as I have a lot of lucid dreams where I know I'm dreaming. They kept telling me I wasnt dreaming but would you believe it? I didn't accept it was real but asked if Joss was dead. I thought if I'm like this he must be dead. They called my mom and I thought when she arrived I'd wake up...nope. I desperatley wanted to sit up I thought if I sat up it would be like on the telly I'd be sat up eating grapes...nope. They couldn't sit my bed up for hours as some of the breaks in my pelvis and spine were so close to my spinal cord they needed a specialist consultant to confirm if I could be paralyzed or not. So I was lay totally flat with a neck brace on for hours. I still hate lying totally flat now. I can't explain what it was like really, I was concious but I don't remember much of it, I couldn't move at all, I was scared but couldn't explain what of, I had a lot of panic attacks. I had oxygen pipes in my nose and a cathater (tube that goes into the urethra that contunually empties your bladder, aswell as countless IV's for fluids, morphine and other pain relief. I was having hallucinations which turned out to be an allergic reaction to tramadol, I could see rats everywhere and could see through my eyelids, I didn't sleep at all. My nurse for that day Liz was amazing, she kept saying 'we'll give you a lovely wash', that wash was the worst thing ever. I was allowed to be rolled to the left which they had to do to wash me, I cannot explain the pain that caused. Being rolled onto your side with a smashed pelvis and onto a destroyed thigh...I screamed but it wasn't a controlled scream at all it just came out it was excrutiating..I'll carry on with ITU later...drive safe, George x
Saturday, 23 March 2013
19th August - The accident - What happened...
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