I'm back!
Neal Champion's Racing Blog
I'm back!
Categories: Announcements [A], 292 words3 feedbacks • PermalinkI was discharged from the hospital at lunchtime today.
The surgeon is very pleased with the way the operation went, and if he's pleased, I'm pleased. It took a fair bit longer than expected - about 5 hours! Part of the problem, apparently, was removing the previous 'nail' (the piece of metal running the length of my femur, holding my knee the right distance from my hip) - this, when they finally got it out, was found to be a bit bent. On hearing this I apologised to the surgeon, cos it meant I'd put too much weight on it, but he said not to worry as everyone does it. Hmmm. But the xrays on Monday looked good too, so everything bodes well for a successful outcome.
Post-op recovery was a bit up and down - the day after I felt really fine, but the day after that I felt lousy as the morphine had bunged up my digestive system. But then I came off the morphine, and with some other drugs to get me 'going again', I settled ok. Amazingly, I was out of bed and on my feet the day after the op, if only to travel from bed to chair, and two days later I was moving around on crutches, albeit considerably slower than I was a week ago. Yesterday I was well enough to be given an afternoon pass to attend the funeral of a schoolfriend, and, while it tired me out a bit, it was obvious I was ok to be discharged.
Anyway, enough of the purple prose, how about some pictures! The one I have is a little gruesome, so click here if you dare. I think it looks like something out of a Boris Karloff movie.
Try again
Categories: Announcements [A], 109 words3 feedbacks • PermalinkI'm off to the hospital this afternoon, for a fairly major operation tomorrow. AS my femur shows no sign of fixing, the surgeon is going to :
- remove the nail
- run a reamer down the centre of the bone - this should spray bit of bone fragment into the bit that's not repairing
- take a bone graft from my hip
- cut my thigh right open and apply the bone graft
- put a new nail down the length of the bone, with retaining screws top and bottom
- close the thigh up again
Amazingly, after that lot, I should only be in hospital for 3~4 days, apparently.
See you on the flip side
Not a good birthday present
Categories: Announcements [A], 169 words2 feedbacks • PermalinkToday is my 46th birthday.
It's also the day I went for a new x-ray on my femur, followed by a chat with the consultant. The x-ray looks exactly the same as 6 weeks ago i.e. there's still a 20~30mm gap between the bits of bone. So, I'm going to be having another operation, involving removing the nail, putting a reamer down the middle of the femur, taking a bone graft from my hip, cutting my thigh open and applying the graft, and re-fitting a new nail. This should be some time in the next three weeks.
As you can imagine, this isn't the best news I've ever had. Apparently the operation has around an 80% success rate, which is not as high as I'd like; if it doesn't work, we're onto external fixators, so let's hope I get lucky this time.
Having been almost continually postive about this whole process, I'm going to allow myself a day of sulking. It's my birthday, and I'll sulk if I want to.
Return to the scene
Categories: Announcements [A], 267 wordsSend feedback • PermalinkSince getting up on crutches, I've been too busy getting on with life to update this blog much - hopefully the whole thing can be shut down soon.
One of things I did was visit the Manx Grand Prix. It was great to be back on the Island (the first time since the accident), and catch up with all sorts of people. I shook a lot of hands in the paddock, including Andy Mackay who was the chief marshal at the corner and first on the scene when I crashed. He described what went on, and it was really good to be able to thank him in person.
I also went to Nobles hospital to say a personal thanks to Ian, the nurse who was on duty on ward 11, and who got me through the first couple of nights there. Hope you enjoy the wine, Ian :-)
I also drove out to the Jurby Road circuit and took a few photos of the offending telegraph pole. On second sighgt, I feel just a bit unlucky that I hit it - there was plenty of soft grass to land on either side (just over the low wall).
Tomorrow is a big day - apart from being my 46th birthday, I'm back at the hospital for new x-rays of my femur. I have to say it feels pretty strong - I've been putting 30% of my weight on it, as advised by the consultant, without any pain or ill-effects, so I'm allowing myself to hope that the bone really is starting to fix now. Watch this space for an update.
