I did not sleep before it was time to be moved out of the ward and brought in to surgery on the morning of the 18th November 2006. It was still dark outside and the rest of the ward still slept as I was moved in whispers and long silences. It was a Thursday morning. The reason for my lack of sleep was as much to do with the day before as the day itself.
By late afternoon on the Wednesday I knew what I really wanted more than anything was to be able to duck out of the following days operation. On Wednesday afternoon I had just unexpectedly been put through a lengthy ordeal involving a procedure to attach (technical term eluding me!) 'electrodes', leading from various strategic points of my brain, to 'trigger' points on both legs - a form of insurance for the surgeon to reduce the risk of cutting off and through the vital nerve points of my body while attending to my spine.
All I could think of that Wednesday afternoon was my situation now was not dissimilar to the classic board game, Operation. I could never will myself to have a steady enough hand to prise the vital organs from the wee fella on the operating table without triggering the alarm from touching the sides during game play. This was exactly the challenge now facing my surgeon. Precision was everything. The consequences for my spine and I, let's face it, I had thought about nothing else for months prior to this moment. I'm a glass half empty kind of guy! This was now utterly terrifying purely and simply because I had been so shit playing Operation all those years ago! After this procedure and back in the ward I could visualise nothing other than that deliriously spaced out wee dude on the board games crude operating table!
I was fidgety and anxious for the rest of the Wednesday to the extent that the nurses took notice on numerous occasions. I was asked repeatedly to relax. Easier said than done while I had these loose dreadlocks of electrodes and the Operation guy acting as a constant reminder of my imminent fate. These wires had been glued to my head and were uncomfortable leading down my back. They were apparent if I lay on my back or on my side. Everything was annoying.
I had nothing to look forward to. I couldn't plan anything in advance of tomorrow. Everything was literally in the surgeons hands. I couldn't eat, read or sleep. I could not do anything for fear but just focus on the clock ticking.
Thursday morning I was wide awake but taken completely unawares when the porters and members of the surgical team seemed to swarm my bed and, before I knew quite where I was being transported to, the lift doors I'm in are pinged open and I'm met by my entire surgical team. They mean action. My anaesthetist is on me in a flash asking me to count to 10. I think I manage a count to 7 before I am so completely and literally out for the count.
It seems in an instant I come to and I immediately notice the sickly walls and vomit like I insisted I would when I came round. "Am I in intensive care? What's wrong?" Where's my stuff?" I am basically asking questions mid vomit and in the same level of panic and fear I felt presurgery. My poor nurse meanwhile is trying to place a sick bowl under my chin and reassure me it's alright and I am back up in a different part of the same ward, only while I'm under observation.
I notice my girlfriend only as she scampers away in distress at the scene from the bottom of my bed. The lights are on in the ward and I sense the darkness outside. "Is it still morning? What time is it?" I assume as I was taken down in the dark I have returned only slightly later that morning and the surgery did not last as long as the couple of hours estimated to carry out the procedure. A little undercurrent of relief and promising signs is quickly distinguished...
"It's teatime! The surgeon will be along shortly to see you." I am reaching for the sick bowl again in shock I have been so long under anaesthetic. "You'll be ready for your tea and toast once you get all this up!" the nurse adds unhelpfully but cheerily enough. Can't she see I am in the midst of a crisis here? I am unsure the exact extent of the crisis but it's clearly a crisis. I am not feeling like the same me I was 24 hours ago. And 6lbs lighter from being this sick!
And it's Teatime? I am trying to do the maths and eventually settle on it being somewhere in the region of 9 hours since I was moved that morning! What in the hell has happened in all that time?
The nurse shuts my curtains behind her now I'm a wee bit more settled which allows her to go off to make me tea and toast. I have no time to think before there's a voice from beyond the curtain calling my name. "How's things, Brian? I'm .... I'm next bed to yours!"
"Ah hi, I think I'm fine. Not sure."
I am not sure of anything anymore. I know and I'm surprised I'm not in any pain. I have my finger on the morphine button but I don't have any need to press it. My partners distress is worrying me as well as the length of time I have obviously been in theatre. At this I remind myself about my legs.
I still have legs but you wouldn't know it. I feel completely disconnected from them. I cannot see them and I cannot sit up but I'm being propped up by some pillows at the back of my head and only the bed sheet is covering my legs. I really don't want to see them. I try for a first time to move my limbs but the sensation is not unlike moving giant stones and there is no visible movement through the bed sheet. I'm no Geoff Capes. My legs are immovable. My nurse returns with my tea and toast.
"You'll be ready for these now?"
"I can't move my legs!?"
"That's not unusual but your surgeon will be through to see you shortly..."
Ever get the feeling you are being played?
The toast tastes good and I am chatting away fine with my neighbour when I'm next caught unawares as the physio team are next to call on me.
"Mr Spalding, we have been asked to pin prick your feet and your legs..."
I can't tell blunt from sharp and I'm guessing for the most part and there's a part of me willing myself to say yes just for the sake of having given myself hope that things may return to normal but the truth is I feel nothing blunt or sharp anywhere.
No sooner it seems have they left and almost as if they have planned it, that my surgeon and the ward registrar are bedside wondering how I'm doing. I instinctively apologise for how long it has taken for my surgery and recall saying "you must be knackered!?" to my surgeon which we all laugh at. He explains how complex the surgery turned out to be and that the time was taken in clearing the many cysts and tumours which had unexpectedly been found running from the base of my spine all the way up to level with my shoulder blades. These had likely been growing unknowingly within me all of my thirty four years. None of these had appeared on any scans prior to surgery. The surgeon said he didn't know when these were ever going to end and feared he would have to continue into the brain, which brought with it new challenges he would rather not consider. Thankfully after some 8 hours these cysts and tumours were removed to his satisfaction and now he was holding out for a slow, steady recovery to take place and none of those tumours and cysts to be malignant on further analysis. My limbs might take up to 12 months to recover and he had a small concern that I had came out of surgery with some paralysis but it was too early for any certainty. "You relax tonight and we shall see how things are in the morning!"
He didn't look exhausted by his days work. I lay there and attempted to take in what had been said and, possibly due to still being under the affects of anaesthetic and morphine, I felt relief it was all over and there was a what-will- be-will-be air of serenity about me. I felt my breathing steady for the first time since I came round. I had the days newspaper handed in to me and now with my curtains pulled back I could see and chat with my fellow patients for the first time.
Later, at lights-out in the ward, I put my headphones on and listened to a couple of albums on my MP3 player. I was a little bemused by how normal I felt. I had not slept for 48 hours but was exhilarated rather than tired. I now had no great worry and there was no panic about me not being able to even twitch my legs. It was all up to me now.
I did eventually nod off thanks in part to Liz Fraser and The Cocteau Twins and woke the next morning to overnight snow having fallen outside and my first movement of a couple of toes. A very minor win but a win nonetheless. The exhilaration I felt was off the scale seeing some toe wiggling again!
Over the next week there was some small improvement in the response of my legs and the physios worked diligently and without showing any emotion towards my predicament or apparent improvement. They assisted me in getting me from my bed to my wheelchair I was mobilising in, without assistance, and back again. I found that every motion I had, prior to surgery, taken as a given and for granted, now had to be strategically broken down into its component parts and getting up from bed for instance involved precision planning and me almost dreading the consequence off every movement I made, even just to get both my legs over the side of the bed! Everything had to be reconsidered.
The physios soon worked me up to a point where I was attending the hospital gym. They initiated me in a program of exercises designed to ultimately re-engage with my core muscles - involving me sitting on a bench and feeling confident enough to sit without the need for my hands to balance me while seated. It was strenuous, I had to learn to trust my balance again and my energy level sure wasn't what it was. It was exhausting mentally as well as physically.
From this starting point I could look to complete transfers independently from bed to wheelchair and back again and begin to feel like I was regaining some independence again.
I was a little put out by being in a neurosurgical ward where it seemed everyone but myself was on a two night maximum stay and that everyone was just able to walk out of there the day after surgery. The only other guy was in the bed next to mine and he beat me seven consecutive days in a row on the chess board up to his discharge day, and by which time I was relieved, and beaten up enough by his chess prowess, to see him get away home too!
I was waiting for a transfer to another hospital, a specialist spinal injuries unit back in my hometown of Glasgow (I had no idea such a place existed!) but with beds there at a premium, I was informed that it would be weeks rather than days before I could expect a transfer from Aberdeen.
It was limited, with the facilities at my disposal in Aberdeen, what I could achieve with the physios there and it was a somewhat frustrating time waiting for a bed to become available in Glasgow, especially since the physios involved in my care at Aberdeen took great delight every day in telling me how much better off I would be with the facilities which would be available to me in Glasgow.
Friends and family rallied round me as I basically took up a bed in Aberdeen while I waited for a transfer. I was able to move around the hospital freely in my wheelchair but it was a frustrating and boring waiting game.
One night, around 11pm and long after lights-out in the ward, and I had switched off for the night, my slumber was disturbed by the swoosh of my bedside curtains being enclosed around my bed. A bespectacled gentleman in a bowtie introduced himself to me in a whirlwind of introduction, much of which I couldn't grasp or register in my stunned state, but I just about managed to get the gist that he was from the Spinal Injuries Unit in Glasgow and he was here to quickly assess me and to assure me a bed was being prepared for me to be admitted asap. He took ten minutes before asking if I had any questions?
"Are you here just to see me?"
"Yes!"
"Have you just travelled up from Glasgow?"
"Yes!"
"You'll be staying in Aberdeen tonight?"
"No!"
"You're heading back?"
"Yes, I have surgery in the morning!"
I just shook his hand. A six hour out of hours round trip following a day of work and a likely 2am return to Glasgow for a likely 6am alarm call for surgery the next day, all for a ten minute consultation in Aberdeen? I was swelling with absolute pride for our NHS and absolutely assured I would be in the very best of hands once I could access an available bed in Glasgow.
I have never been so excited to attend a hospital in all my life.
Next time - Glasgow.
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