Paul and Tracy's Main Blog

It's one of my mum's favourite sayings, but not one of ours. We're getting rather fed-up of waiting...

Well, Wednesday came and Tracy was still in as much pain as before the root-block operation, so she duly phoned Mr Ross' secretary as instructed. And was told that Mr Ross had said that sometimes the root block takes up to 72hrs to have any effect, and she was to continue with her pain relief (such as it is) and call back on Friday. Well, Friday came and Tracy was still in as much pain as before, so she duly phoned Mr Ross' secretary as instructed. And was told that Mr Ross was not in the hospital on Friday and that she would pass a message on and get him to phone Tracy on Monday... until then, she was to continue with her pain relief (such as it is)... Sense of deja vu? Quite.

Tracy has got some new pain relief in the form of fentenyl patches, which she tried yesterday (Friday) and they seemed to work, with the pain in her arm subsiding at last. Until this morning, when she's woken with a blinding headache and nausea. Which are known side effects of the patches and the instructions are to remove them immediately (and therefore lose the pain relief benefit). So she's back to square one, and still waiting for an intervention that will work. We'll just have to wait and see what Mr Ross says on Monday. And hope it's not "call back later". Because if it is, I won't be held responsible for her actions...

It was also my turn to visit the doctor yesterday, as I wanted to see about the pain in my knee. This started a couple of weeks ago, when the weather got really cold and was a sharp pain right in my knee joint. It prevented me from running on my treadmill, something I'd only just started to do again in a desperate (and vain) attempt to stop myself turning into a blob. I also wanted to discuss my complete lack of energy, general lethargy and rapidly decreasing sense of humour. He examined my knee and proclaimed it was hurting "due to the exercise", and I should take a pain killer when it hurt. We then discussed my other symptoms and he said I was "worried" (no shit, Sherlock!). And that was that.

So we're still waiting for Tracy to be mended, and I'm just going to focus on trying to lift her spirits and looking forward to when she's able to travel and we can get away for our much-needed holiday. And I'm going to cook us a special meal tonight to celebrate Valentine's Day, and will just have to hope that Tracy's feeling well enough to join me at the dining table to enjoy it...

This morning started early, following a restless night. It's always the way when I know I've got to get up early for something, as I wake an hour or so before the chosen time, and then spend the remainder of the night snoozing and waking seemingly every 5 minutes, before I finally give in and get up before the alarm shatters the peace...

So it was this morning, when I emerged bleary-eyed and headed for the warmth of the shower at half past five. Tracy had also had a relatively sleepless night, no doubt the operation ahead playing on her mind. After a quick breakfast (for me, Tracy was simply "fasted") we defrosted the car and set off once again in the direction of Hope Hospital, a place that by now surely has lost the right to call itself that...

We arrived at the allocated time of 7.30am, and wandered the corridors looking for the "Day Case Reception", only to get lost and have to ask for directions (embarrassing when you consider how much time we've spent here over the past 18 months). When we finally arrived at the reception it was in like walking into a furnace - either the heating was broken in the full "on" position, or the nurses think their patients are Swedish and try to make them feel at home (the wooden decor helped with this theory, although due to the absence of towels and a charcoal fire on which to pour water, we remained fully clothed). Once checked in we sat down on the by-now familiar special hospital waiting-room seats. These chairs must be designed by decendants of the SS, as they seem to exist solely to impose extreme discomfort on those unfortunate enough to have to spend any time sitting on them. And we had to spend "some time" sitting on them. Until 9am, when Tracy's name was called and she was shown into a little side-room, which I wasn't allowed to enter (apparently the Day Case ward is too small for visitors). And so I was forced to leave Tracy in the hands of the medics and go in search of a coffee.

Knowing that the treatment would take at least an hour, I bought a paper and read it before returning to the reception area to wait for Tracy to contact me. Now I'm becoming something of an expert at sitting waiting in hospitals, and so am well practiced in the noble arts of "staring into space" and "trying to avoid looking at other people waiting". But there were two interesting characters in the waiting room who put this latter skill to the test. The first was probably a couple of years older than me (which would make him "late forties"). He was resplendant in maroon Doc Martin boots, jeans with little neat turn-ups, bomber jacket, tattoos and bald head (it would have been a skin-head if he'd not gone bald naturally). Second, was a younger man with tattoos on his neck, mohican hair giving way to pink dreadlocks, tartan kilt over ripped jeans, and piercings in his nose, eyebrows and several in his ears, including... yes, a SAFETY PIN! By now I was convinced I'd somehow been waiting in the reception area so long that I had, in fact, gone back in time to the mid seventies...

But no, I hadn't. I'd been there for just 3 hours when Tracy rang to say she would be coming out soon... "Just in "recovery" and they need to check I'm alright as I've been sedated" - "Yeah, me too" I thought (but didn't say, as she didn't sound too happy, and my sense of humour doesn't work its best at times like this). When I asked how it had gone she said "Tell you when I get out". Which didn't bode well...

And so it turned out to be. The procedure was going fine, well, apart from the anaesthetist not being able to find a vein and having to resort to her foot (an unfortunate side-effect of the large number of operations she's had recently) until Mr Ross inserted the needle into her spine and watched the x-ray, when he discovered that the prolapsed disc was worse than he expected. So bad, in fact, that he doubts whether the root block will have any effect, and thinks that Tracy will have to have another operation - a "Laminectomy" - in order to fix the problem. Nonetheless, he finished the root block procedure and told Tracy that if it was still painful on Wednesday to call his secretary and she'll arrange for the follow-on surgery.

This is not what we wanted to hear, especially as a the Laminectomy will mean Tracy will have to be admitted back onto the Spinal Unit for 5-7 days.

So now we once again wait. Since getting home this afternoon, Tracy's not been pain-free, but is unable to tell whether the pain she's experiencing is due to the needles she's had put in her back or the original condition. If it's the latter, then there's no doubt she'll be going back to Hope Hospital soon for another operation. Despite my usually boundless optimism, even I find it hard to believe this is not the inevitable outcome.

Looks like our holiday is going to be postponed for a little while longer...

As mentioned in my last post, we've been trying to get to see Tracy's spinal consultant, Mr Ross. Well, we got a call yesterday to say we could see him this morning at 9.15am. So once again we set off for Hope Hospital, Salford, and battled with the early morning rush hour traffic, which wasn't as bad as expected, meaning we were in the waiting room before 9am...

Having pestered Mr Ross' secretary so much this week, Tracy had been given the 1st appointment, so we were ushered into his little consulting room just after 9.20. He listened to Tracy describe her symptoms and then wrote out a card for some x-rays of her spine, and off we trotted to the x-ray department, where we waited for a little while before Tracy got changed into a fetching hospital gown and was whisked into the x-ray room. Not long after, she emerged, got redressed and we went back to Mr Ross' clinic and waited to see him again. He examined the x-rays and proclaimed that all looked normal - in fact, pretty good. He was especially pleased with the natural-looking curvature of Tracy's spine above and below the fusion, which looks entirely "normal". All of this didn't explain the pain she was in, though, so he declared she'd need an MR scan of her neck and spine, and without further ado we were chasing him down the corridors to the MR department to see when they could fit her in. He came back from his consultation with the MR team and said we were to go grab a coffee and come back in half an hour and sign in at reception. This we duly did, although whilst I had a coffee, Tracy had a glass of water and some painkillers...

Back at the MR department we sat and waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually Tracy was told to get changed into a different, but equally fetching, hospital gown and shown into the scanning room. And then I waited alone. And waited alone some more... After a further half hour of waiting, Tracy re-appeared, got re-dressed again, and we set off to try and find our way back to Mr Ross' clinic. Where we sat down and waited...

Finally, we were shown back in to see Mr Ross again, and he opened up Tracy's MR scan images and started studying them. First, the area around her spinal fusion, which he proclaimed was "fine". Then up to her neck, where he spotted something. Now, I don't know how Tracy felt when he went "aha!" but it shocked me. What he spotted was a "prolapsed disc" in her neck, which was pressing on the nerve root and likely to be responsible for the pain she was feeling, especially in her arm. He explained that this was not likely to have been caused by the accident, but was probably hereditary and could have happened at any time...

And so on to what can be done about it. He quickly determined that she should have a "root block" put in, which is an operation involving an injection of local anaesthetic and steriod around the nerve root, which numbs the nerve immediately, whilst the steriod helps with long-term pain relief. And then he sorted out an appointment for her on Monday, so she can have it done quickly and hopefully be pain-free again...

In the meantime, we're back home, and Tracy's taking painkillers and trying to get reasonably comfortable. It's going to be a long weekend for her, but knowing the cause of the pain, and having something planned that should help rid her of it, has lifted her spirits...

Just a short post to share the latest news. Tracy is still not feeling great, the pain in her back not really letting her get out of bed. Since I last posted she's had to come off the painkillers supplied by the hospital as they were making her ill and not really tackling the pain. Her GP has suggested she take Oxycodone (a form of morphine), and this has helped a little, but we've been pushing to get in touch with the spinal consultant to get his advice - and hitting a brick wall as despite several calls we've yet to get to speak to him or his team...

So today we've had to cancel our much-needed holiday to Vietnam. To say we're disappointed would be an understatement, but I'm sure we'll get away just as soon as Tracy's fit enough to travel.

I'll post again when we know anything more...

... to start looking forward to our next holiday...

On Tuesday Tracy woke in some discomfort with a pain in her right shoulder-blade and shoulder. We put it down to a twisted muscle, a result of her gym perhaps, and she took some painkillers and tried to get comfortable. Thinking nothing untoward was going on, I got up on Wednesday and went to work as normal. Shortly after arriving, I got a phone call from a very distraught Tracy. She was unable to get out of bed, the pain in her back being so severe. Needless to say, I bid my colleagues goodbye and headed straight home...

When I got there it was clear that the problem was not, as I'd understandably feared, spinal, as she had full sensation in her legs and was able to stand and walk. But there was no denying she was in considerable pain, and naturally extremely upset - when I mentioned the need to get her to A&E she got even more upset, and insisted I call our GP instead. I managed to get her to calm down, and gave her some painkillers and tried to get her to relax whilst I called the doctor. His receptionist took a message and within a couple of minutes he was on the phone, and I explained what was going on. He said to make sure she had pain relief and that he'd come and see her as soon as his surgery was over, around lunchtime. He was true to his word and came around 12.30, and examined Tracy. He said he thought it was a pulled muscle that was trapping a nerve that runs up the back and into the shoulder, and that the pain in her arm - which was by now getting worse than the pain in her back - was most likely a 'displaced pain', common with trapped nerves.

After he left I tried my best to make Tracy comfortable, and she stayed in bed for the rest of the day, and all day Thursday, and Friday. She was able to get up to go to the loo, but the only time she could get remotely comfortable was when she was flat on her back. Saturday saw her in slightly less pain, and she was able to get up and come downstairs, where she could sit and watch TV. By now we were starting to think she was over the worst, and would be fine for our trip to Vietnam on Wednesday...

Only Sunday morning she woke in even more pain. She was complaining of a really bad pain in her right arm - "inside, like it's in my bones" - and was once again reduced to tears. She wanted to see the doctor - a sure sign things were bad - so I told her I'd take her to A&E where they would be able to do some proper tests. She wasn't keen on the idea, but I was not taking "no" for an answer. So at 10am we arrived at Oldham Royal Hospital and were seen fairly quickly by the triage nurse and shown into a cubicle. Where we waited for over an hour. Then we were shown to a different area of A&E where there was a "GP" who saw us fairly quickly. He questioned Tracy and examined her, listening to her chest and back, before saying that he was concerned it wasn't muscular, but could be a "pulmonary embolism" - a blood clot on her lung. Now that wasn't what we expected, and was certainly not what we wanted to hear. If it was true, then our trip to Vietnam was certainly off, and Tracy's trip to Ecuador in August was probably off, too... to say nothing of her being on blood thinners and at risk of stroke etc...

He ushered us back to A&E proper, where she was immediately seen by another doctor, who repeated the questioning and examination, before explaining that he wanted to rule out the PE - and that she'd need a blood test and chest x-ray. These were duly performed, and the good news was that she didn't have a PE - we could breathe again. He explained that the most likely cause of the pain was a pulled muscle and a trapped nerve, although it is possible that the nerve pain originates where her spine has been fused, which would explain its ferocity.

With the examination over, he gave her some stronger painkillers, and told her to take them for 24hrs before seeing the GP on Tuesday morning. If they work, then she should get a prescription for them from him. If not, then she will need a different type of painkillers (the ones he's given her are for muscular pain, but she may need some specialist nerve painkillers).

So now we have to wait and see how she gets on. At the moment she's still in pain, but finding it bearable, especially when she uses a hot "wheaty bag" on her back. We'll know more in the morning, but won't be sure about what's happening with our holiday until Tuesday at the earliest... keep your fingers crossed, I think we both need a holiday right now...