The consultant, the consultant neurologist that I’m under at the moment, is actually the second consultant neurologist. We decided going to this chap, simply because he’s an expert in trauma type injuries as opposed to the other guy who was more of a general neurologist.

Through him, he was very keen to find out if there was some sort of heart issue that caused me to come off the bicycle. Because it was quite clear that I wasn’t actually hit, but something made me come off. So I went and had quite extensive cardiology tests, and generally the heart was fine, even I’m sort of nudging up towards high blood pressure. So I’ve been advised to shift some weight and actually since the beginning of this year, I’ve come down from some 128 kilos and this morning I was 115. The target is 100, and we’ll see how we get on. But it’s, it’s working well.

I did ask him, Had he seen injuries as bad as Daniel’s before And he said he had. He said, But I’ve also seen MRI scans where there have been very bad injuries and the patient hasn’t made a great recovery So to me then that sounded as though there might be hope. But when he’d finished talking, I didn’t really have any questions. By this stage, you know, we were crying quite a bit. As he was leaving I said, Please don’t give up on Daniel, that’s all I ask of you. Just try, try, try and do all you can And he did say that he would do all he could, but he would have to see what would be in Daniel’s best interests and I thought, ooh! You know, he was straight talking with us, as gentle as he could be, but the enormity of it was, was quite horrific and he left us then, it was 3 o’clock on the Friday afternoon and Daniel took quite a turn for the worst and at 7 o’clock the nurses came out to say that only Mum and Dad could visit Daniel as he was extraordinarily poorly.

So, that was all fine and then three weeks Daniel was still in the coma, and another consultant came to see us who spoke along the lines that when they’d, when Daniel had been brought into [hospital], he was already in his own very deep coma and they had sedated him further, but in their opinion they didn’t think that Daniel would waken from his own deep coma. So they were preparing us for the fact when sedation was off, he might still not come round. And they were then thinking long term that he could be in hospital for six months and then require specialist rehabilitation and they thought they would refer us to [rehabilitation unit]. Well it’s a big centre, and because there’s such a long waiting list, they wanted us to start the paperwork straight away. For Daniel’s needs that was going to be the best hospital, the best rehabilitation.

So we said, Yes, fine, you know, start the procedure So we never knew when they were going to take off sedation, they didn’t ever let us know. But the next day when we went in his girlfriend, Daniel’s girlfriend and brother went in to see him, and they came running out and said Daniel had opened his eyes. And we were ecstatic. And I thought this is it. This is it. You know, he’s back with us. Totally naïve in how a traumatic brain injury affects. And of course, although his eyes were open, he wasn’t aware. And I definitely wasn’t aware that just by having your eyes open, it doesn’t mean to say that you have any knowledge or recognition of anyone.

Well at the race track, I had first aid. So my helmet was removed, and I think I had to be resuscitated, and then at hospital in Spain, I had my neck fixed. So I broke my neck and one of the discs in my neck popped out and into my spinal cavity, and injured my spinal cord. So it happened at the middle level of my neck between the fifth and the sixth vertebraes. So they took the disc out and fixed my neck with come steel rods and a plate, which was fixed with screws. And my lungs ceased working so I had respiratory failure, so they had to put me on a ventilator, so I had a hole in my neck and was on ventilation. And I think I was unconscious for quite a long time.

And what was going through your mind at that time?

Am I going to see again? Because it was all dark and I kept touching it, because I couldn’t believe it, you know. And then everything happened really fast after the accident. The ambulance came and they took me to the hospital. I went into the bathroom at the hospital and I started putting water on the eye because I wanted to try and clear it. I thought that the blood maybe was the reason why I couldn’t see. But it didn’t do anything good and I just waited for, and then I don’t remember anything from there. They gave me a lot of morphine for the next week or something like that. And I guess there were two operations, I think, in that week. I don’t remember much.

Okay and so can you tell me more about the operations you had at that time?

You know I don’t remember much. I think they asked me if I wanted to get a local anaesthetic or a total and I went for the total, because I didn’t want to look at the operation while it was going on. And then nothing. I just remember going to the, to the operation room and they give me something to relax for ten seconds, and then it knocked me out and that’s it. The first operation I don’t remember, though.

Right was that done on that night?

The first operation yes, was done at a hospital near [place], I think. I’m not sure though. And the second one was done at [place].

Right. And do you know what the aim of the first operation was?

The

The aim, the reason for it. What were they trying to do?

Maybe take the glass off the eye. And the second one was to try and adjust it I think. Or to implant the contact lens maybe.

It was done under epidural, under I suppose you’d describe it as local anaesthetic. So it was done in operating theatre, epidural in my back and then, yes, the insertion of the, the suprapubic catheter. I do remember that following insertion there were certainly a couple of days when you have large saline bags to wash through the, the bladder, because there is obviously some trauma associated with insertion of a suprapubic catheter. So it can be a little bit alarming that, you know, there is a degree of blood in the urine and, and certainly it’s discoloured to start with. And it takes a bit to wash that through.

Did you, did you have a saline drip in your arm so that you had more fluids going in or was it a saline wash-out?

It was, it, it was a saline wash-out. So I think that the urethral catheter was still left in for a day or two so that saline, or whether it was saline, water was passed through the bladder so that it kept flushing through and, was able to, to, to get rid of that trauma at the time. Obviously that is, that was quite a disconcerting sight. It was, you know, for a day or so, bladder, you know, blood passing through your bladder. But you’re told to expect that. So, you know, it tends to clear up within 24, 48 hours.

Yes, I think I was reticent although I knew it was necessary. I think independence in urinating is, is something everybody takes for granted, and to be in a situation where, you know, something’s going to be put, put into your bladder permanently is, is something you’d, you’d rather not happen. But when faced with relatively few alternatives, I wasn’t able to self-catheterise, so that was a decision that was come to that was the best way to, to manage my inability to urinate or control urination myself.

I would just take some paracetamol if that, but if something more, then I need go to the doctor and get some co-proxamol, something different. Most important is that is actually looking after yourself, alternative to what you do, it’s actually looking after yourself. For instance, yes, I like going to meetings, but in your preparing for your meetings, don’t rush, don’t worry, because there’s always time to catch up once you get there. it’s good to be on time, but all these have to do with your wellbeing, your welfare, instead of always taking tablets and worrying about them, calm, you know, calm. it’s not going to go away. Alternative is a different method of looking after yourself, a different method of feeling, just invent a better of feeling, imagine yourself somewhere that is different. it’s not too difficult to do, because if you’re living with pain all the time, even now and then you just wish it would go away, you just calmly sit down, and you just listen for it. it’s gone. it’s there, but you’re there too, and once you learn these little techniques after a while you practice them and feel a little better in yourself. It doesn’t stop things. Like I said before that if I take, if I’m going to start walking, soon I walk a little way, without anything my leg is going to start to tell me, because I will start dragging behind me, my shoe’s trying to fall off my foot, you know, they do. Then I say to myself it’s time, you know. You get to know your body, and alternative medicine mean you learn to know your body and when it’s talking to you, you listen. And this is something that individual have to learn themselves. It makes a lot of difference.

Catherine:I started caring for Bill as soon as I went into the hospital.

I didn’t do so much in Casualty because I was in a state of shock. But when he went up to the ward he didn’t go straight to theatre like they were originally planning, and so he was delayed, I think by about six hours weren’t you?

Bill:Yes.

Catherine:So he went up onto a ward. On one occasion, his, his sheets did need changing on that evening. And this is the case where nobody would do it because of the mess of his leg and just didn’t want to move him and also because of him being so big, but in the end

Bill:Cheeky.

Catherine:In the end I got the sheets and we did it between us didn’t we? We managed to do it.

Bill:Yes.

Catherine:And when they came back the nurses it was like done, you know. All on your own? Yes. You know. So I was very wary of the care. The caring in ITU was good I think it usually is, although sometimes they didn’t react to things as quickly as what I would have done, they sort of let them go on a bit longer. And then the ward after ITU I was helping you dressing, washing and exercises.

And the care continued throughout his stay, especially at [hospital]. Especially at the next hospital where he rehabilitated. They had a lot of MRSA there and they were not segregated, these MRSA patients. They were allowed to use the same bathrooms as the patients without MRSA. And Bill with all these open wounds he had an infection on his skin graft and the stump still hadn’t really healed there was no way I was letting him into the general bathroom that was being used by MRSA patients. So what we used to do is that, he used to have a strip wash and he used to come for weekend leave, didn’t you, and we’d get him in the bath then, although he wasn’t supposed to go upstairs initially, but…

Bill:I shouldn’t have gone in the bath either, I was a very naughty patient.

And your partner was killed in the car accident?

Yeah.

And that must have been absolutely devastating.

Well it’s interesting because I have been told subsequently that I didn’t remember that he’d been killed. So, when I was in hospital and I had, after I was unconscious, and I think I was conscious I was unconscious for a long time, like a few weeks rather than days. When I did finally come round I kept asking about him. And I’ll never forget that was one of the things my father had told me, that he was the one who the hospital just said somebody’s got to tell her, so he was the one who had to tell me that he had died. So he said that was one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do.