Part Fourteen
Hello Everybody, many thanks again for following my story in trials. I hope you all had a Happy Christmas and I would like to thank you all for making my Christmas so special this year. Wishing you all the best.
I hope you all have a Happy and Healthy New Year.
Thank you for the great comments that you have sent me, they are really appreciated. The part of my story that we have reached now is almost beyond belief.
Many people have asked me over the years, why I suddenly stopped riding and disappeared to? What comes next should answer these questions.
After several weeks in hospital following the Subarachnoid haemorrhage, I was allowed home again. I was only home a matter of days when I suddenly got a terrible pain in my left leg. It went from my heel up to my knee. It was a Sunday morning at 4 a.m. but was so bad we had to call the doctor. He wasn’t at all happy and told me I had a pulled muscle. The pain persisted and we eventually called out another doctor and rang straight away for an ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived, the pain had stopped but that wasn’t the end of it. The pain was the Churg-Strauss doing its’ thing. It had cut off the blood supply in my left leg from the knee downwards destroying everything leaving only the bones. I could spin my foot round like a propeller. I had no feeling in it whatsoever. I couldn’t walk at all. The strange thing was I had no feeling in the leg but I had a toothache type of pain that was to last for years. During this time it was impossible to sleep and I spent the nights watching the TV. I was put onto a pain-killer called Fentanyl which is a lot stronger than morphine but I still had the pain.
After several weeks in hospital following the Subarachnoid haemorrhage, I was allowed home again. I was only home a matter of days when I suddenly got a terrible pain in my left leg. It went from my heel up to my knee. It was a Sunday morning at 4 a.m. but was so bad we had to call the doctor. He wasn’t at all happy and told me I had a pulled muscle. The pain persisted and we eventually called out another doctor and rang straight away for an ambulance. By the time the ambulance arrived, the pain had stopped but that wasn’t the end of it. The pain was the Churg-Strauss doing its’ thing. It had cut off the blood supply in my left leg from the knee downwards destroying everything leaving only the bones. I could spin my foot round like a propeller. I had no feeling in it whatsoever. I couldn’t walk at all. The strange thing was I had no feeling in the leg but I had a toothache type of pain that was to last for years. During this time it was impossible to sleep and I spent the nights watching the TV. I was put onto a pain-killer called Fentanyl which is a lot stronger than morphine but I still had the pain.
I then developed a different pain this time it was Gallstones. I was back in hospital again to have my gall-bladder removed. I came home from hospital but developed a pain in the small of my back. I went to see my local GP and she wanted to admit me to hospital. I declined the offer as I had had enough of hospitals to last me a lifetime. She did however give me an envelope with instructions that if I needed to go into hospital to give this envelope to the ambulance staff. As usual, it all went wrong! Just after midnight we had to phone for an ambulance. The problem this time was a pulmonary embolism or blood clot on the lung following the gall bladder operation. I caused a bit of panic in the hospital because I couldn’t breath and collapsed on the floor. Instead of using the oxygen mask they pulled it off and pushed the plastic pipe directly into my mouth and turned the supply flat out. I was kept in bed for three weeks and was not allowed out of bed at all.
The next thing that happened was I suffered a mini stroke. I woke up and my arms were moving about on their own but this stopped quickly. I was in hospital just overnight. Panic over but not for long. I got a pain in my stomach. I managed to get to the phone to ring my wife, Bev. She came home post haste and finding me laid on the floor she phoned for an ambulance. I don’t remember much about the reception part of the hospital as I was in so much pain but I can remember the consultant telling me that they did not know what was wrong and they would not know until they opened me up. They said something had pushed my diaphragm up into my chest cavity. I was in the operating theater for seven hours. When I eventually woke up, I was told that at the end of my operation they had tried everything possible to keep me alive however this was to no avail and they were prepared with the possibility that I was not going to make it. Suddenly I fired up again, maybe it was just a drop of water in my carb! The problem was a perforated bowel caused by Diverticulitus which was a condition I didn’t know I had.
I think we have all suffered enough for now and as crazy as this sounds there are still more serious problems to come before I am out of the woods.
Thanks for taking the time to read all this, I know its not about riding sections, but it makes things clearer for those who remember me riding and disappearing from the trials scene. Bye for now! – Rob
The next thing that happened was I suffered a mini stroke. I woke up and my arms were moving about on their own but this stopped quickly. I was in hospital just overnight. Panic over but not for long. I got a pain in my stomach. I managed to get to the phone to ring my wife, Bev. She came home post haste and finding me laid on the floor she phoned for an ambulance. I don’t remember much about the reception part of the hospital as I was in so much pain but I can remember the consultant telling me that they did not know what was wrong and they would not know until they opened me up. They said something had pushed my diaphragm up into my chest cavity. I was in the operating theater for seven hours. When I eventually woke up, I was told that at the end of my operation they had tried everything possible to keep me alive however this was to no avail and they were prepared with the possibility that I was not going to make it. Suddenly I fired up again, maybe it was just a drop of water in my carb! The problem was a perforated bowel caused by Diverticulitus which was a condition I didn’t know I had.
I think we have all suffered enough for now and as crazy as this sounds there are still more serious problems to come before I am out of the woods.
Thanks for taking the time to read all this, I know its not about riding sections, but it makes things clearer for those who remember me riding and disappearing from the trials scene. Bye for now! – Rob
TRIALS GURU 