Practically Classics Forum

bob, get well/better soon mate.. as for posting photo's if i can do it anyone can..

Rich thanks for the kind thought about my illness. Fortunately I am in remission which can last for years. People have lived to over a 100 with this disease. So its not fatal.

I got the illness in January. I had septic shock which nearly killed me. My blood pressure went so low my kidneys shut down. I awoke 2 weeks later. My kidneys are now working fine. But the septic shock has permanently damaged my colon. I had dementia for a while.

I am very lucky I got away that light. Others have ended up dead or blind.

The NHS saved my life.

Now I am raring go and do stuff.

My ptoblem is that I don't have a land line. We were meant to get fibre optic but the contractors damaged a lot of pavements and other services and it got stopped.

However I have a computer genuis mate who has promised to link this mobile connection to my lap top.

At the moment I can take photos from the phone to lap top and edit but cant send from lap top to phone.

He can get the lap top to connect to the Web using this mobiles account. Evidently he needs to turn something on in the lap tops software.

Also the Rolls-Royce Australian Club wants photos.

A picture paints a thousand words.

Again thank you for the concern ref my disease. I am getting better because in part my wife, family and friends have given me so much support. Also the Royal Bournemouth Hospital intensive care unit those guys saved my life. One nurse watched over me for 24 hours
no breaks.

Note Septic Shock is very serious. It kills 90% .
The syptoms are a vagueness of thought and shaking uncontrollably. The vagueness of thought causes the patient not to realise that they are ill. Which means they can't help themselves. So if someone you know gets like this call a doctor quick because delay is fatal. In my case I thought I was in Russia and decided not to eat or drink. But somehow managed to fix my garage doors and gutter.

Enough woe is me.

Incidently when I explain this tech stuff it makes more pennies drop as to deeper understanding of tech stuff. I try to make people think a bit deeper about tech stuff. I ask why is that bit like that.
I have been playing mechanical stuff as soon as I could take my dads alarm clock apart and break it. I blamed my younger sister. I was about 4 and my sister was 2.
My dad was very patient with me. He was a desert rat in WW2 Libya and a mechanic. My mum was an anti aircraft gunner on the Firth of Forth. So also mechanical minded.
They both enjoyed army life and were very hardy.

Kind regards

Bob Reddington.

It is coincidental that our neighbour had septicaemia, along with a blood clot in the liver and an e-coli infection and, having come home for a fortnight, went back to hospital about ten days ago with what they thought was C-diff. From what you have said, I suspect it was just septicaemia that was the problem. The trouble is that he didn't remember much about it from a couple of days after he said he felt ill (he first said he was ill the day before I had the Golf MOT'd in mid April). He thought it was flu, but just under a week later I saw him sitting on the ride-on looking pretty dire (and shaking!). Apparently he might be home on Thursday as he is now eating properly at long last.

I'll try to catch his wife to let her know your story, though she is a bit scatty and it will probably be mixed up by the time she goes to visit! I do know he saw the GP a day or two after he first came out of hospital and was told that the doctor hadn't expected him to come out!

I do wonder with older patients if the shock of the disease or operation causes temporary dementia. My mother's Alzheimer's seemed to start more or less straight after her last operation and the neighbour's wife had major surgery on her back a few months ago and rang her husband the day after her surgery to say she was going down for the op that morning! The neighbour himself seemed to be somewhat confused for a while too - though I gather he is feeling much better now.

I won't mention the hospital's name, some of the locals call it "The Killing Fields" and it was recently announced that it is one of three trusts that are going to get special attention!

Tractorman.

I am pleased that you could be helping someone in need from my posting. God bless you.

Dementia is strange . I was totally away with fairies. My wife realised in time that I was ill. The GP turned up and order an ambulance pronto. The dementia lasted about 6 weeks. Sepsis is a killer of young and old. Its a mystery as to how I got to septic shock. Another aspect is mental health bit ( separate from dementia). Some don't cope to well with the sudden realisation that one is not immortal and how easy it is to just die. Fortunately for me my brain said no grave will hold me down. At least I know one thing if I get septic shock again and do die I won't know anything about it. Unlikely because I have got septic shock aware.

As I said I have been very lucky. At the moment due to morphine based meds I can't drive. But soon I shall be able to stop the morphine. I am not a addict normally so its easy for me just to cut back then stop. If I get pain again I will just have to take the morphine.

Thanks for the posting mate.

Kind Regards
Bob Reddington

Glad to hear the morphine hasn't got hold, though suspect it's a relatively low dose stuff, similar to that a friend needs for his back trouble (he is the one with the wife who throws his chair in the car boot!).

Thinking back after I posted, I wonder if my neighbour's problem was actually kidneys and not liver: it was his wife that told me what he "had" and not him. Mind you, both forget things almost too often! If his illness wasn't enough, as I say she had major surgery on her back a few months ago and is waiting for a knee replacement op (due in August). If that wasn't enough, her son has just had his ankle (or foot) broken and reset - and is almost due to have it done again) after a motor bike accident in 1995 nearly cost him his leg !

One of our other neighbours lost his brother due to septicaemia within the last year. He was under 50 and ran a haulage firm that mainly dealt with farm animals and feeds. It makes you wonder about the GP though - it was the same practice for both of them! As you say, you were very lucky and long may the remission last! I'm not blaming the "agricultural career" though - my neighbour was a ship's engineer and almost has difficulty working out the difference between a sheep and a cow!

Mother and her sister both had Alzheimer's and both were quiet. A friend has it and can be somewhat aggressive (he's on meds for that). Unfortunately, he suffers mini-strokes now and had a "proper one" last year (but he was lucky: you wouldn't know if his wife didn't mention it! As most of the people here will know, I eventually left work to care full time for my mother in her last two years. I was glad she was calm - but she was determined to carry on as "normal" and we managed to keep her at home until her demise. What did annoy me was all the "Cure for Alzheimer's" headlines in the newspapers: they only offered false hope and, believe me, Mother had already tried them as part of her normal routine (eg "regular exercise cures Alzheimers" - she walked the dog every day and probably did two miles a day until she could hardly get out of her chair). Strangely, my sister kept out of caring for Mother as much as she could - and she was a nurse who had specialised in "old people problems"!

Dear Tractorman

The morphine is called oramorph. Or oral morphine. I take enough to just relieve pain only. I don't do drugs or booze. I see no point in making one self ill. However I do like a small rum once in a while. But as for getting drunk or stoned no way. I have mates who smoke Jazz Woodbines. They then talk *ollocks for an hour and fall asleep.

I have to drink lots of liquids. The reason is that my colon doesn't work properly. If I don't then my kidneys could give trouble.

With older people who may be incontentent, due to embarrassment don't drink enough. This is actually quite serious. I have known old poeple die from this.

So make sure they drink at least 2 litres of liquids like tea coffee milk shakes ice lollies etc. Also soups.

My GP Dr Sherwood she is really good. She doesn't fully understand my illness but has a hot line to a guy who does. Plus I research every drug they give me. Someone dropped a clanger and I took one drug and I felt very ill for a week. Now I check.

I recommend joint replacement surgery. I had both hip replaced with titanium ball joints. No grease nipples.
The joints were done six months apart. With in days of the second one I was walking pain free. Except my back hurts due to a slipped disc.

I shouldn't think that a agricultural life is responsible for ill health except the chemicals used on farms can reek havoc if one is careless.

I live in Dorset and farms are everywhere.

Motorbikes are so dangerous. No doubt bikers will say this is untrue. But a biker is so vulnerable.

A copper on a motor bike told me he was going to a serious emergency and in places was doing 140mph on a Honda blackbird. He got stood down. He slowed down to 40mph and got T boned by a car. He broke his ankle. Its so easy to come unstuck on a bike.

Today I mowed a bit of my lawn. The exercise is good.


Regards
Bob

About 10 mins ago my illness decided to have a go. It stopped me dead in my tracks. It took my breathe away. It lasted for 2 mins.
This is another reason why I don't drive. 2 mins at 30mph is a mile, plenty of road to run someone over.

It's not fair on other people to have a guy driving who all of sudden can't even put his foot on the brake.

Still big improvement. The last one lasted 13 hours.

Bob

Good luck with the titanium joints, current ones are all made from plastics as there have been too many instances of people suffering from the effects of swarf contamination. I'm on the list for the right one to be done first, it's a two stage job, no idea what the ICME time is but I'll be in the hospital for fewer than three days during the first stage, where they dress back the area where the bone has worn away, this is then built up with a new edge that can support the synthetic cartilage, but has to bond securely to the remaining bone.
Then, probably a few months later, I go back to have the ball part of the assembly fitted, it's made from some sort of polycarbonate.

Then the left hip wants doing, oh joy unconfined..

Keep at it though, Noli nothis permittere te terere, as the Latin speakers put it.

It's getting to be a hypochondriac's corner here isn't it?

ANOTHER neighbour has had a new knee fitted recently (just over a fortnight ago) and is driving his wife mad because he is trying too hard and is frustrated because he's cooped indoors instead of being out at work (some sort of mech engineering sort of job). His daughter is just getting over glandular fever at the moment - it started just as she got into the "big" exams (Yr 12 stuff) and had hoped to make up for the lack of effort in last year's exams. Coincidentally, it started just as her father had his op, so she couldn't look after him when he got home!

At least you can't over-grease the joints if they are sealed for life

tractorman wrote:It's getting to be a hypochondriac's corner here isn't it?

Put a bunch of old crocks together in the same wee corner of cyberspace and it's almost inevitable. I asked the consultant rheumatologist - who was talking me through the job - whether they could fit a grease nipple and at the time, I was only half kidding.