Tag: #BoneGrafting

Once there was Social Security, now there’s the Tories and their DWP (Pt.2)

“I was awarded DLA for life” I told her, “yes” she replied “that meant for the life of the benefit, DLA has been replaced by PIP”

Time Jump – Sometime in late September 1979, Simpson Ward, The Brook General Hospital, Woolwich. ‘Green Card’ discussion …

… I was visited in my hospital bed (I’d been bed bound for more than a month) by a very nice lady, not hospital staff, I can’t remember how she introduced herself but she was some kind of social worker/social security officer. She’d come to talk to me about a ‘Green Card’. She went on to explain that a green card is given to people with a life long disability, and she visits the hospital, talks to the ward sisters and is told which patients have injuries that would render them permanently disabled and thus qualify them for said ‘Green Card’. I was just 19, stubborn and naive to say the least. Yes I knew I’d really messed up my leg … but disabled? Get out of here … which is pretty much what I told her to do, but politely. “No thank you” I said. And looking back, my first foolish act of denial, something I’ve struggled with / suffered from ever since!

Time Jump – Sometime in late summer 2001, St.Leonards, East Sussex. ‘DLA Medical Examination/Assessment’ by an ‘old school’ ex-army doctor …

… I hobbled into the examination room aided by my usual elbow crutch and custom made ‘appliance’, my orthopaedic splint. A middle aged man, late 50’s or so, maybe older, was sitting behind a desk head down writing with a pen. In front of the desk was a pair of chairs, those moulded plastic waiting room style chairs. Behind those chairs at the back of the small room was an examination couch/bed, like the ones of that era seen in every GP’s consulting room.

Without looking up, the man gestured for me to sit, holding out his arm, hand open, palm up towards the 2 plastic chairs. I manoeuvred over carefully, crutch clicking as they do (or did in those days) and gently, carefully lowered myself onto the chair as I had been taught by physiotherapists so as to minimise strain (thus pain) to my lower back. The chair was too low so the pain was uncomfortable. Once seated no doubt accompanied by my unintentional but audible puffs, pants and winces at the discomfort, I started to explain my situation/condition. Abruptly, again without looking up from his writing, he held up his free hand, palm up at 90 degrees in the universal ‘STOP’ gesture, still without looking up, he said “I will tell you when to speak”. I was taken aback by his abruptness, no, rudeness, but I was also aware that if I were to answer back there may be financial consequences, and I was here out of desperation, to claim what I had been told 22 years earlier was my entitlement, but I’d never claimed out of pride.

So, I sat quietly, obediently, while he finished his writing. Eventually he put down his pen and asked me a load of questions about my mobility etc, to which I was to answer either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. He then asked me to undress and climb onto the examination bed. “Do you need me to remove my splint?” I asked “Yes of course” he replied, to which I replied “then I’ll need my wife’s assistance”. My wife and two year old daughter were waiting out in the waiting room. He got up and went to fetch them. My wife helped with the splint straps which are too low and too much of a bend for my back to bear. He instructed me to strip to my underpants and lay on the examination couch/bed, which was quite a climb and struggle, so my wife helped me. He looked at the scars on my leg, the bone graft harvesting scar on my hip, and the scar on my back where I’d had the most recent spinal fusion surgery. He also asked about the 14 inch scar running from scrotum to above the left hip, but that’s another whole story on its own!

Very quickly his abrupt and harsh attitude changed. “That’ll do” he said, “take your time and get dressed” … “I apologise for my attitude earlier” he went on as he returned to his seat and started writing again. He put his pen down and looked at me in the eye this time, “you wouldn’t believe what I see and the tales I hear from people coming through that door” he said to me, he continued “I’m an ex-army battlefield doctor, I know genuine injury, pain and suffering, but I have to initially at least treat everyone who comes through that door as fake”. “I understand” I replied as I struggled aided by my wife to refit the splint as quickly as possible … “But you” he continued “you are genuine, and I apologise again for putting you through this examination ordeal … but” he gestured in a half shrug. He looked at my wife with my daughter in her arms now and said “you don’t have to worry, whatever meagre financial assistance our government has deemed fit to grant you, will be granted, and for life, because of what I am about to write on this form”. “Thank you”, we both replied. “Why have you not applied for DLA before?” he asked. “Stubbornness and youthful pride” I replied. He nodded, and we were done, out of there with DLA secured for ‘life’ … or was it?

Time Jump – October 2019, Eastbourne, East Sussex. PIP assessment by ‘medical practitioner’ and her IT questionnaire …

… A cheaply partitioned office, no examination bed/couch, not much privacy, just a keyboard and monitor from which she read questions about my mobility and moved her mouse to click into boxes, never really taking her eyes off the screen to look at me, though sometimes glancing up at the clock on the wall. “Shall I strip, remove the splint, show you my surgeries?” I asked, “no that won’t be necessary” she replied, again staring at her screen … “I was awarded DLA for life” I told her, “yes” she replied “that meant for the life of the benefit, DLA has been replaced by PIP” …. “can you raise your arms above your head?” she asked in the same monotonous tone.

I would go on, but I think everyone who is interested in reading this knows how it works. My DLA was stopped of course. I’d made the silly mistake of making it to the examination centre.

My point of this post – Once there was Social Security for those in genuine need and I had paid in the maximum amount of National Insurance, the tax that was quite rightly levied to pay for those in need. But then 2010, the Tory/LibDem coalition, ideological ‘austerity’ and their wicked and shameful attack on the disabled. Where previous governments had supported DLA (Disability Living Allowance), awarded for life, because what would be the point of wasting time & money on dragging these people back for repeat examinations? This new (and somehow still sitting 12-1/2 years later) government, decided to ‘rename’ DLA as PIP thus terminating the life of DLA and forcing all those who were entitled to it, depended on it, needed it, had then again to endure humiliating re assessments by so called ‘medical practitioners’ guided by and decisions made by a ‘points based’ database delivered through a web page on a computer screen.

The government took away a vital lifeline for thousands of genuinely disabled people and spent more taxpayers money than they saved awarding the WCA (Work Capability Assessment) to French IT firm ‘Atos‘.

“I was awarded DLA for life” I told her, “yes” she replied “that meant for the life of the benefit, DLA has been replaced by PIP”

Thank you for reading.

Selling off NHS for profit: Tories’ and Liberal Democrats’ links with private healthcare firms revealed

A Valid Epiphany? …

The date Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 was released as a single, and randomly scrolling through my Twitter ‘Music‘ list prompted me to post the ‘quote tweet’ below. And then down a rabbit hole on a whistle stop tour of unwanted memories my mind hurtled.

Hospital bed memories – November 23rd, 2021, scroll on …

1st Stop – Simpson Ward, The Brook General Hospital, Shooters Hill, London

November 1979, my 2nd stay in Simpson Ward, this time for 3 weeks, ‘Bone Grafting’ surgery & recovery. I wrote about it a little [ here ] the surgeon was saving my leg by removing bone from my hip to repair catastrophic damage three months earlier to my right Tibia, which I wrote about [ Here ] and [ Here ] – I’ve always loved my music, and that song was being played on the little radio I listened to in my hospital bed.

There it is, that protruding part of your hip, you know the part you sometimes catch on doorframes or other obstacles and it hurts! Well it’s a great site for ‘harvesting’ donor ‘bone’, make a sizeable incision, clamp it open to expose the ‘Iliac Crest’ … and off the surgeon goes with his hammer and chisel, hopefully collecting enough bone to replace missing bone somewhere else, in my case, my lower right leg, where bone had gone missing, I wrote about that [ Here ]

2nd Stop – Simpson Ward, The Brook General Hospital, Shooters Hill, London

Time Jump to 3 months earlier, a warm and sunny Monday morning in August, one week exactly from my 19th birthday, and in a ‘Split Second‘ my life was changed forever … I’ve told you all about that [ Here ] Warning! Graphic Content!

3rd Stop – The Present, 2022 January to Present

What a grim year! Energy crisis, Mortgage rates, Inflation, the war in Ukraine, the Tory government accelerating their 12 years and counting mission to fuck everything up they touch, voting to pump raw sewage onto our beaches, causing the £ to crash, installing more unelected leaders as PM. Even the Queen gave up, just one handshake from Liz Truss and HRH decided Enough is Enough!

My own family’s finances are in dire straits. In March the car went to try and offset mortgage payment rises. As I write this towards the end of November, the heating has just gone on, but with the thermostat set at 14.5c …

… But now (finally I hear you say) to the point of this whole post, my ‘Epiphany’ of sorts. My memory being jogged and taken on a journey by seeing the Twitter post above, the anniversary of the release of a song. All this year I have spent sleepless nights and anxious days worrying, beating myself up and feeling so bloody guilty about not contributing more financially to the household budget. I have the time, on some days the chronic pain [ I told you about Here ] is not ‘as bad’ as others. I’ve been surfing the job sites, set up google alerts & subscribed to e-mail lists, hoping maybe, just maybe I’ll see a job that I “could” do.

But November 23rd, 2022, after my memory carried me back to the places I’ve mentioned and linked to above, a voice inside my head told me not to be so hard on myself. I’m in my 63rd year and worked hard for almost 40 years despite being declared ‘disabled’ at just 19 years of age. I went to bed at 8:00pm and slept almost all night but I dreamed, I dreamt of pain & surgery, processing my early evening thoughts no doubt. When I awoke and the family were off to work and school, I went in search of an old blog post to remind me of the point where I had to give in to a disability I’d been in denial of for most of my life. I reposted it unchanged, word-for-word, as it is still relevant today. That post marks the point in time I finally admitted to myself that I was, and had been disabled for a very long time. Apart from the surgeries I’ve mentioned and linked to above, there was a ‘Spinal Fusion’ in 2000, another birthday spent in a hospital bed, this time my 40th! The damage done to my lower spine caused by 20 years of walking with a ‘corrective gait’ (limping in other words), putting uneven load on the vertebrae and discs leading to herniation and rupture. That surgery left its own side effects and complications, ‘scar tissue adhesion’ I was told a couple of years later when seeking a diagnosis for ever present sciatica and numbness in my ‘good leg!’ Then later after the 2013 MRI scans a diagnosis of ‘Peridural Fibrosis’ …

… and Traumatic Arthritis of the spine, knee and ankle! Yet I still beat myself up, feel laden with guilt that – ‘I’m NOT OUT THERE EARNING’.

So, to conclude my ramblings here on this ‘Epiphany’ of mine, probably short lived as no doubt I will revert to blaming myself for everything, but in this ‘living in the moment’ clarity … what do YOU think readers? Is my epiphany valid?

Thank you for reading.

Tibia Nonunion – Closure (or not) of sorts …

Have you ever doubted a memory? Have you, many years later come to the conclusion that you must have been mistaken, surely that didn’t happen. But then you stumble upon something, (and I’ll tell you at the end of this post) that confirms that old memory – and in this case it has made it even more shocking for me!

Back in August 1979, I made a real mess of my right leg. 3 months later, after 6 weeks or so in hospital, bed ridden on ‘bone traction‘ and the dreaded ‘Braun Frame‘ … then home with a full plaster ‘big toe to bollocks‘ as it was known and weighing in at 14lbs! I couldn’t walk without crutches as the plaster (and my shattered leg) was deemed ‘non load bearing’, indeed the occasional experiment (or slip of a crutch) resulting in ‘load bearing’ was a very unpleasant and painful experience!

So, here I was in late November that same year, at the orthopaedic out patients department, dropped off by a good samaritan, long time friend of the family called Alf Challis. I limped my way on those two old style full length wooden ‘armpit’ crutches to the plaster room where that evil one stone dead weight, hard as your house walls, heavy cocoon was split by an electric reciprocating saw blade that was not at all pleasant as it buzzed its way passed the many scars underneath. Into a wheelchair with injured leg resting on outstretched supporting board and onto the x-ray department, then back to the waiting room to await the call from Mr Ahmed, the orthopaedic surgeon into who’s care I had been placed some 3 months earlier.

Now, here I was, just 19 years old, 3 months of hospitalisation and unable to walk, work, do anything much fun. Eager to move on, put this thing behind me etc, etc. I’d watched the progress of many others like me who I’d met on the ward while I was there. I’d seen how these things progress – Full length non load bearing plaster to ‘below the knee’ and load bearing, get that knee joint moving again, actually start to walk again, albeit with a plaster cast but hey, actually walking again. I’d dreamt of not having that solid mass constricting my leg at nighttime when simply rolling over in your sleep resulted in a harsh and painful awakening as the plaster crushed my good leg or worse – my balls!

So, I was expecting good positive news, then in I went to Mr Ahmed’s consulting room. Mr Ahmed was not known for his pleasant bedside manner. He hardly spoke, and when he did it was in a thick accent. He in no way invited questions. As I was wheeled in there he was standing, facing away from me, staring at the x-rays clipped onto one of those old school ‘light box’ units fixed to the wall. He turned to look at my outstretched leg, looked back at the x-rays then walked over to me. He placed his left hand just under my knee and gripped the top of my shin bone (Tibia) above where the fractures were, he looked at the x-rays, shook his head, looked at my leg, placed his right hand below the fracture sites, looked again at the x-ray as if to get co-ordinates and locate what he was looking for. He then tightened his grip with both hands and proceeded to twist in opposite directions and my leg snapped! I nearly went through the ceiling!

“It is no good … It is not healing” he said, “you will have bone grafting … I will take bone from your hip and if in 3 months time it’s the same I will take bone from the other hip, then if no healing after 3 months, a rib”. He was talking about a timeline consisting of 3 month increments, no end point just a 3 monthly cycle punctuated by surgery.

So, there I was alone in that room with Mr Ahmed, in shock from the pain, but more so from the devastating news that I was back at square one! Back in the day we didn’t question or challenge these people, they were ‘surgeons’, pretty much god like, the attending staff nurses on the ward rounds would look at you sternly with a ‘speak when you are spoken to’, silent, compliant respect had to be shown. I said nothing. But I was devastated, and I felt sick at the prospect of Bone Grafting because I had witnessed the post operative and 2 week hospital stay recovery during my first spell in hospital.

A guy arrived called Keith, he was on crutches, non load bearing, he was put in the bed next to me and explained how he’d broken his leg some time before and it wasn’t healing. He was to have surgery, a bone graft the following day. Keith was a Fireman, early 20’s. A really nice bloke, down to earth and obviously tough as nails, no wimp, no soft touch, not afraid of pain (and believe me we met some men that were total babies in that ward) … Part of my shock and fear in that consulting room with Mr Ahmed, was the flashback playing in my head of Keith a couple of months earlier, Keith was also under the care of Mr Ahmed, and Keith really suffered post operatively, and I remember the nursing staff comforting him and explaining just how painful bone grafting was. Keith took it like a man, he was indeed tough, but we could all see how he was suffering … Would I be able to take it?

… I started this post asking if memories can be wrong, imagined? The account above is from way back at the end of 1979! To be honest, I have doubted myself so much over the whole “He broke my leg again” account I’ve told (some) not many people over the years, but then;

Just a week or so ago at the time of writing (August 2021) some 42 years later, I was watching a YouTube video posted by ‘Talking With Docs‘ … they were talking about Tiger Woods injuries and I was interested to hear that his fractured Tibia was not unlike my own injury back in 1979. Then they used the term ‘Nonunion’ to describe the ‘not healing’ comment Mr Ahmed had used as a laymen’s term for me back then. I’d never heard that term and went ‘Googling’ … There’s an image below illustrating a ‘Test’ for ‘Tibia Nonunion’ … low an behold, there in that illustration is precisely what old Mr Ahmed did to my leg that day, without warning, no numbing, no pain relief, no apology!

… Why did I find it so shocking? Because it confirmed my recollection was correct. I’d rather hoped and decided internally long ago that I was mistaken.

But no!

This ‘Bone / Skeletal’ traction confines you to your hospital bed – in my case for 6 weeks!
The Braun Frame for 6 weeks bed bound, and with Bone/Skeletal traction pin through the ankle in my case.

And here in the image below, top left is the illustration Google presented me when searching ‘Tibia Nonunion’ … and what prompted me to compose this post as some form of ‘closure’ on my own experience of ‘Nonunion’ which is ironically failure of bones to ‘close’ !

Top left the ‘Shocking Twist’ in my own story!

I may talk more of my experience of ‘Bone Grafting’, I may not. I’d like to talk more about how the 19 year old me was affected psychologically at that time, I think in many ways that is more important. For instance – I was given no explanation as to why my bones had failed to heal, and I felt like a failure myself. I had taken the calcium pills, the iron pills (as i’d been diagnosed as ‘anaemic’ due to the massive blood loss) and I’d stuck to the ‘no load bearing’ so as not to disturb those re-knitting bone pieces. So here was another revelation and explanation after 42 years, in the YouTube video, the doctors spoke about soft tissue damage and compromised blood supply hindering the bone healing process, and I had suffered both, including a severed artery. At 19, I had chastised myself for not healing faster, I’d seen others back walking 6 months before me. I was very hard on myself and have been ever since, but thanks to the Talking With Docs video I’ve finally learned that something else wasn’t really my fault, and that is ‘closure’ of sorts.

Thank you for reading 🙂

Bone Graft Harvesting – For the non squeamish;

Physical Recovery – The First Three Days …

I write this stuff as therapy. And it works for me. Somehow getting the thoughts out of my head and into written words reduces the frequency of unwanted flashbacks. I like to think, and from feedback I know that to some extent these accounts help people who have experienced similar. And for those who have not, I hope you never do, but encourage empathy maybe for many who suffer in silence. However, these experiences are what have made me the person I now am, for that I am strangely fond, even grateful for having been selected by fate to join this exclusive club.

… My first memory of consciousness after the surgery was of a physical tugging at the foot of the hospital bed. My foot and leg were being ‘pulled at’ by someone or something. Forcing my incredibly heavy eyelids open, I saw a dimly lit and out of focus scene with people standing at the foot of the bed. I recognised only one of the faces, that of my father, the others were nurses and/or doctors, and the tugging I had felt was the attaching of weights via wires and pulleys to a steel pin that had been driven through my ankle and was protruding perhaps a couple of inches each side. This I later discovered is called ‘bone traction‘, …

Thankfully asleep for the drilling/insertion – “a steel pin that had been driven through my ankle and was protruding perhaps a couple of inches each side”
Skeletal Traction
Bed bound for Months like this necessitates ingenuity

… the weights, some 9 pounds on one side and 5 pounds on the other were intended to keep the broken ends of the bones apart so as to encourage repair across the gap and hopefully, healing. That first conscious memory was just that, I suspect less than a minute and at approximately six pm. I had been out cold for the surgery since 12:45pm.

‘a kind and caring nurse would appear, only to give me the bad news that the last morphine shot was perhaps only 2 hours ago!’

The following three or four days are just random flashes of semi conscious memories. I was positioned very close to the nurses station or desk. A busy and noisy place to be on the ward but necessary I later learnt for close observation. The next few days of consciousness / unconsciousness, were punctuated by a cycle of morphine injections to the bum cheek or thigh, changing of blood transfusion bags and changing of blood soaked bed sheets.

Everything revolved around excruciating pain! Pain would wake me from my blissful sleep, pain that would get stronger as the last shot of morphine wore off. Having been awakened by the pain some assessment of my situation was possible. The bed was at a very steep incline, head low, feet high. There was a ‘cage’ over my legs, a metal frame which thankfully kept the sheets & blankets away from the wounds. A triangle shaped ‘handle’ hung from another attachment above my head. This was to be grabbed by hand(s) in order to pull myself up from lying flat. From another frame hung 2 bags of blood, one dripping constantly into the pipe plumbed into my left arm, the other on standby for when the first was empty to ensure a swift changeover. The nurses would fuss around this often and around other bottles suspended under the bed on the right which were draining blood and fluids from the wounds in my leg. 

Another ritual I remember because of its pain inflicting consequences was the changing of the sheet upon which I was lying. That severed artery despite being expertly stitched back together in the operating theatre was somewhat stubborn in its willingness to heal, consequently it leaked copious amounts of blood through the sixty stitches keeping the flesh together covering the broken bones, onto the bed sheets.

The nurses would visit every half hour or so and draw with a Biro pen around the blood stain, comparing it with the previous half hours pen mark. They’d then remove the sheet, painfully manoeuvring me and my shattered leg in the process and replace with a clean sheet. I believe they even weighed the blood soaked sheet in order to work out the blood loss! Whatever, it was not my favourite procedure.

So, awake with the morphine wearing off and the pain ramping up, any thoughts of sleep were just fantasy! I would try to be tough and put off the pressing of the buzzer to summon a nurse as long as possible, but inevitably I would give in and buzz. Not being aware of the time (or being in a state to even understand a clock) a kind and caring nurse would appear, only to give me the bad news that the last morphine shot was perhaps only 2 hours ago! They were permitted only every 4 hours! Gulp! Another 2 hours of steadily increasing pain and discomfort until any chance of temporary relief! And that was the 4 hourly cycle, 24 hours, night and day for the next few days. Awakened by pain, increasing in severity for another 2 hours, the morphine shot (painful in itself), 1/2 hour to take effect, blissful feeling of the pain receding then wonderful sleep, for perhaps 1-1/2 hours, then awakened by the pain again. On and on it went!

Once again this is one of those situations that only someone who’s experienced similar could relate to or understand. When in severe pain, five minutes feels like an hour. It was worse at night, less going on in the ward for distraction, all in all, a very lonely negative experience that you have to find a coping strategy for.

I was 18 years old and all previous routine normality in my life had gone, changed, in a split second. 

‘make sure your underpants are clean in case you have an accident‘

Thinking now about those first 3 or 4 days, I have no recollection of visitors, although I know I did have visitors, family, my girlfriend, not sure anybody else would have been allowed at that stage. I guess it was the morphine that has rendered those first days just a dim memory of the 4 hour pain-relief-sleep-pain cycle.

I do however quite clearly remember a delicate operation to remove the only item of clothing not cut off in the A&E department. There is a great Billy Connolly sketch (Link tba) in his stand up routine where he berates his mother for that old saying ‘make sure your underpants are clean in case you have an accident*’ he rants in his inimitable way how insignificant a pair of dirty pants might be when your body is smashed by some accident.

It’s a great sketch and reminds me of my own under pants and their eventual removal sometime in those first few days. I’d worn a pair of horrendous bright yellow Y-fronts with white piping. Because of the (a) the camber of the road and (b) the steep incline of my hospital bed, these had become saturated with blood, and they had to come off!

Now the Brook hospital was a teaching hospital with many student nurses, I was 18 going on 19 and many of those nurses were not a lot older than myself and two young nurses whom I got to know quite well and became friends with in the following months, were sent (possibly as a test for them, which happened a lot I learnt) to remove the offending pants in a as dignified way as possible, given that I could hardly move and in order to navigate the traction wires, pulleys and paraphernalia, the pants needed to be cut off. Now, in the state I was I couldn’t care less about my dignity and remember telling them politely so through gritted teeth and to get on with it whichever way was easiest for them, so out came the scissors and the jokey comments from me to ‘be careful with those’ and in a very slick and discrete manoeuvre off they came and on went what can only be described as a cross between a large cotton handkerchief and and those sexy bikini bottoms that tie up at the sides! The nurses had passed their test with flying colours and ticked another process off of their ‘skills sheet’ something I understood fully due to my own apprenticeship of which I was in the fourth of five years. The nurses had knowingly informed and advised me to get someone to modify a few pairs of my old pants, cutting through the seem of the right leg and stitching Velcro for easy removal / refitting. This was duly done by either my mother or girlfriend, I can’t remember which but they served me well in the months to come lying stuck in that bed, leg permanently attached by wires and via pulleys to those wretched traction weights, and the dreaded ‘Braun Frame’ (more of which later).

Thank you for reading

Previous: Conscious throughout

Next: Physical Recovery – The move to the Long Stay Bay

*I will post a link to that Billy Connolly sketch when I find it.

Skeletal Traction

Originally Published on

12/19/14 12:04 PM