Termie termite

[nopanic - neil]

Ian

Just remember, she is still in the best place.

I'm sure she will be fine, just do'nt knacker yourself worring and the long drive.

Take it easy

Neil

[Andy Zarse]

OK guys and Gal's, how about some flowers then to start it all off.

As Ian said earlier, flowers are simply not allowed in intensive care. So until the infection is sorted, it's out of the question. Also, is it wise to send pollen covered-flowers to someone with 9 broken ribs on one side; sneezing is probably going to come a bit sharp just now.

[Mr Termite]

Spoke to Deb this morning by phone – she is now able to answer her own calls! She apologised for getting in a panic yesterday – the only infection is a minor urinary one. As she’d said she’d come back to me, and I still haven’t understood the extra extension number I’ve been given, I didn’t want to disturb the hospital if she had indeed been at the centre of something nasty. She found she couldn’t dial out, so we were each waiting for the other to ring!

Surgeons have chatted to her about getting her going again, and they are proposing a tough regime of physiotherapy, taking 4-6 weeks, at Rouen – but then she’d be able to come home! Realistically – things always take longer than you hope – she might be back in time for my 60th birthday, on November 12th. You can imagine I would view that as a pretty nice present!

I hope to visit her tomorrow, and will then have all the info needed for others to visit if they wish. Cards etc that people have kindly sent will be going with me, I hope. Deb is in a private room with tv & cupboard space for clothes etc.

[Dangermouse]

This all sounds on the up and up Mr T.
Meethinks that birthday party will be a  'canny do' (as we say 'round here)

Keep Ahaad

[Mr Termite]

Ian, Debs will need a huge amount of support when the physio starts, when i was having my broken arm pinned a while ago there was a guy having his knee fixed he was up and walking the following morning after the op, they like to get the limb moving asap before it starts seizing up.

it'll work again but it needs slow hard dedication which you two will have buckets loads of, Peter

Good point, Peter. I marbled (the medics' term when they saw the x-ray!) my left kneecap in 1992. The operation to put a figure-8 wire in was trivial compared to Deb's experience, and they had the knee moving again within 24 hrs. Deb has now gone more than two weeks since her knee was rebuilt - I know how hard it will be to get the knee to respond at all! Pointing her toes, which I found impossible, even after such a short period of inactivity, will be like climbing Everest - sans oxygen! Anyway, today she gets the laptop and a pile of DVDs - the DVD player itself turns out to be defunct (that's the printable version of the term I used when I tried it) - great cracks in the display when I turned it on. Now I need to convince MAAF to buy us another!

[Andy Zarse]

Ian, Debs will need a huge amount of support when the physio starts, when i was having my broken arm pinned a while ago there was a guy having his knee fixed he was up and walking the following morning after the op, they like to get the limb moving asap before it starts seizing up.

it'll work again but it needs slow hard dedication which you two will have buckets loads of, Peter

Good point, Peter. I marbled (the medics' term when they saw the x-ray!) my left kneecap in 1992. The operation to put a figure-8 wire in was trivial compared to Deb's experience, and they had the knee moving again within 24 hrs. Deb has now gone more than two weeks since her knee was rebuilt - I know how hard it will be to get the knee to respond at all! Pointing her toes, which I found impossible, even after such a short period of inactivity, will be like climbing Everest - sans oxygen! Anyway, today she gets the laptop and a pile of DVDs - the DVD player itself turns out to be defunct (that's the printable version of the term I used when I tried it) - great cracks in the display when I turned it on. Now I need to convince MAAF to buy us another!

I guess the "near-death experience thing" is drawing to a close when you're in physio for your knee and watching DVDs in bed on your laptop. What with the seemingly ceasless crap news on here just now, I reckon it's an opportune time for a laugh, and so I'll tell you about Steve Zarse's - AKA The Gimp - Le Mans near-death experience.

The monday after Le Mans one year we pitched up on the Riva Bella beach at Ouisteham to kill time whilst waiting for the 23.00 crossing. We lit a BBQ, got pissed right up on beer and vodka Red Bulls and played 7-a-side rugby even though there was only six of us. Steve being a braggard decided he would take on the other five of us. To say the scrum was a a bit of a mismatch is an understatement, he went down like a house of cards. He sort of buckled backwards as we ran over him, with his legs sticking out behind him. His  head got bent backwards so that the back of his bonce seemed to be nestling between his buttocks. You could hear things inside his body snapping under the pressure and as we moved away he just lay there motionless, gurgling on the floor.

Cut a long story short, the ambulance people put his head in a brace and then gently placed him into an inflatable stretcher which he suck into and then they blew up to locked him motionless to prevent spinal damage. They hooked him up to some monitors and whipped him off to hospital. I travelled in the ambulance with his brother Matt. His heartbeat and blood pressure started falling and I read out the declining numbers to him. Eventually, I said, "Steve mate, I don't want to worry you but your BP's falling fast the heart beat is weakening and you're about to flat line. Please don't die on us". This somewhat alarming news must have created a surge of adrenalin, as things suddenly shot back up on the monitor as the fear of his imminent demise caused his heart to race to 120bpm and his BP to sky rocket.

A bit later in the journey Steve complained that he couldn't feel his arms and legs. His brother held his hand and quietly whispered in his ear, expalining that this was due to his spinal cord being severed and that he was now a paraplegic and it meant he would never walk again, nor be able to make love to his wife. Steve began quietly sobbing.

In fact, on the beach the paramedic girl (with cracking knockers) had already explained to us in French that they were quite sure there was nothing wrong with him except a few pulled muscles, that the trip to the hospital was a mere precaution and the numbness was simply the inflatable stretcher cutting off the blood to his fingers and toes. But we were buggered if we were going to tell Steve that if it meant we could torment him for a few minutes about spending the rest of his life paralysed in a wheel chair, typing on the internet with one of those prongs with a cork on attached to his head.

Once at the hospital he was given a quick check-up and released clutching a massive 25mg valium pill. I offered him a beaker of water and he swallowed it down. Of course, this being France, it was a suppository intended for anal consumption and in no time he was compaining about seeing  dragons everywhere and was vomitting in the back of a brand new Peugeot 605 taxi.

Aren't drunken mates great eh?

[Mr Termite]

I can't match a tale like that! Deb is now ensconced in her own room in the orthopaedic unit at Rouen. There is an ensuite shower/loo etc – if only Deb could walk to it! After an uncomfortable night she had a chest x-ray this morning, but nothing sinister found – where have all those Gauloises been going? Physio will be taxing, and she had a half-hour discussion about it with the surgeon this morning. The physiotherapist herself is concerned that Deb is so far from home, and recommends Deb be moved to Le Mans – where she knows there are excellent orthopaedic facilities – soon. We’ll be happy for that to happen, but are not holding our breath!

 

[Andy Zarse]

Ian, that all sounds good news, another corner turned towards recovery, easy steps, excuse the pun, Mr Z, perfect story any others?

Erm yes, it's not all one-way traffic in Team Zarse. Off-topic i know, but The Gimp tipped a bucket of something extremely "nasty"  over me last night from the rafters of Mark's garage. I've been crapped on from a great high a number of times, but never "that". I'll tell you precisely what it was when I see you, hopefully on sunday! I hope to have had a bath by then, even the dog was appalled.

[Andy Zarse]

  filthy hound!

No, we're still going on saturday but I'm going to try and get along on sunday too, to see the Vulcan and I guess you too!

[Andy Zarse]

I'd noted your comments on this matter before Peter and that's why I really want to see her one last time. 

[Martini...LB]

his dog 'Shadow, German Shepard, fell into the septic tank, lucky the neighbour was nearby and was able to reach down and pull the poor mute out from a very nasty demise.

So it could not even bark???!!!

>Martini...

[Leftie]

Firstly Ian,

Good news so far.

OK, my idea of flowers may have been a bit rash considering condition.

Is there any way CA can help? (Committee please investigate).

"Eventually, I said, "Steve mate, I don't want to worry you but your BP's falling fast the heart beat is weakening and you're about to flat line. Please don't die on us". This somewhat alarming news must have created a surge of adrenalin, as things suddenly shot back up on the monitor as the fear of his imminent demise caused his heart to race to 120bpm and his BP to sky rocket.

A bit later in the journey Steve complained that he couldn't feel his arms and legs. His brother held his hand and quietly whispered in his ear, expalining that this was due to his spinal cord being severed and that he was now a paraplegic and it meant he would never walk again, nor be able to make love to his wife. Steve began quietly sobbing.

In fact, on the beach the paramedic girl (with cracking knockers) had already explained to us in French that they were quite sure there was nothing wrong with him except a few pulled muscles, that the trip to the hospital was a mere precaution and the numbness was simply the inflatable stretcher cutting off the blood to his fingers and toes. But we were buggered if we were going to tell Steve that if it meant we could torment him for a few minutes about spending the rest of his life paralysed in a wheel chair, typing on the internet with one of those prongs with a cork on attached to his head.

Once at the hospital he was given a quick check-up and released clutching a massive 25mg valium pill. I offered him a beaker of water and he swallowed it down. Of course, this being France, it was a suppository intended for anal consumption and in no time he was compaining about seeing  dragons everywhere and was vomitting in the back of a brand new Peugeot 605 taxi.

Aren't drunken mates great eh?

Andy,

Having met Steve, you can consider that you are a Cad, a bounder and a few other things I certainly could not describe in public

As this thread is dedicated Deb's, can we please move 'alternative' subjects to another?

[jpchenet]

As this thread is dedicated Deb's, can we please move 'alternative' subjects to another?

I guess we could...........................but then it wouldn't be a real CA thread without a bit of thread drift would it and therefore Debs wouldn't belive it was real! 

[Leftie]

As this thread is dedicated Deb's, can we please move 'alternative' subjects to another?

I guess we could...........................but then it wouldn't be a real CA thread without a bit of thread drift would it and therefore Debs wouldn't belive it was real! 

OK Mark,
I get your angle here.

[Mr Termite]

There is a strong likelihood that Deb will be moved in the next few days. A lady appeared during my visit this afternoon, and declared that they had identified a rehabilitation facility at Parigne L’Eveque, which is SE of Le Mans. This would be about 40 mins leisurely drive, rather than the two-and-a-bit hours pedal-to-the-metal of Rouen (120 miles). Having just made my 14th visit – admittedly neighbour Sheena drove yesterday – I am really pleased! Timescales still not firm, but hopefully perhaps this week.

Deb is bored, not enjoying the babyfood diet – highlight of her day seems to be the orange juice mid-afternoon – and desperate to get on with a rigid regime of physio. I left her watching Episode 8 of The Jewel In India’s Passage, or whatever it’s called. Her only medication is antibiotics and iron tablets, apart from one of those oxygen thingies in the nose – no painkillers. The most painful thing seems to be the left collarbone, which is a nuisance, and which we hadn’t been aware until the last few days was even damaged.