Hi
Many people would suggest I am being very bold writing a blog story about myself, but after having narrow escapes from life threatening situations, and with friends encouragement I have decided to go ahead. I thought I would add a bit of advice and medical information that might help people when they are in a similar situation.
I started out making a list of incidents and came up with over 30 situations. A few days later I came up with another 4 incidents. One of these including being pulled out of truck after being overcome by carbon monoxide and the incident that is associated with this title.
My first introduction to arthritis was when my family had on a piggery on the outskirts of Sydney. At the time (1973) it was a relatively large set up catering for around 120 sows and their progeny approximately 1000 pigs in total. My father collected the waste biscuits from Peak Freans which we used as the base for the pigs rations. Unfortunately like on all farms there is life and there is death. One day a sow died shortly after giving birth to a litter of 10 piglets. Fortunately there were always a few sows with extra milk teats that we could foster the new piglets to. Unfortunately the sow died in a very confined area which made it very difficult to move her, so it was back to the tried and tested manual labour. My father got a 2.5m pipe and tied the sow’s legs together to the pipe and we both carried the sow out by placing the pipe on our shoulders. This was quite an effort as the sow would have weighed around 160kg, and I was just a skinny 17year old kid. Anyway I slipped on some wet ground and my knee went a different way to the rest of the body tearing cartilage and tearing off small bits of bone from the knee cap.
Consequently my father heard me use the now common expletive F--- for the first time. I eventually had an operation to repair the damage. At the time there was no such thing as keyhole surgery they just used the scalpel resulting in an 80cm scar and 6 days in hospital. This operation was in late January before I started University. My birthday came around and the hijinks of orientation week had started and my mates convinced me to grab my crutches and enjoy the fun. This was the late 70’s and Uni was the appropriate place to let your hair down for a bit of fun. By late afternoon we were quite high and we caught up with the performance of Madam Lash (girl drag-queen/ dominatrix with two drones??) she was flaying her whip around and embarrassing unsuspecting freshers?? My mates thought this was quite funny and started to bait her with little jibs, she and her drones started to chase us and with me on crutches I made a very easy target. Believe it or not I can’t remember what happened next but I was too embarrassed to ask my mates what actually happened.
A few years and a number of operations later I am booked in for another operation, with a leading Sydney specialist to remove more loose bones and clean/smooth the knee cap. He was pioneering keyhole surgery at the time and I was lucky to get a spot 2 days after Uni was to resume. The operation went well and on Saturday they finally let me out of the hospital. As I had missed a week of Uni I was keen to get back. I finally convinced my parents I was up to the 6 hour drive and it was my right leg and when I drove it was flat down anyway. The first few days at Uni were a bit painful but I managed to get to most of my lectures. Next thing I know there are ambulance people around me saying I was so lucky that the cleaner found me. It seems I was unconscious for 2 days. Next thing I woke up in the operating room yelling out “shit” as the pain of the scalpel digs in. The Dr advises that there are nurses present and I should control my language and I clearly remember saying “can’t I have some more antiseptic” before I lapsed back into unconsciousness. I found out later that they could not give me any more anaesethic because of my unconscious state.
When I woke they said I had a very bad case of [1]septic arthritis and they took a “bucket of puss’’ out of me. I was 21 at the time and this arthritis was to haunt me for the rest of my life.
Anyway I promise the next episode of my life will be more to the point. Also as promised I have a bit of a summary on Arthritis and its effects, there are a number of good links at the end of the blog which you can utilise especially the Australian Arthritis Foundation booklet.
I have to thank body and soul where most of this information was sourced from.
[1] Septic Arthritis develops when bacteria spreads through the bloodstream to a joint and/or is directly infected with bacteria by an injury or during surgery (mainly knees or hips). Most cases of acute septic arthritis are caused by organisms such as staphylococcus or streptococcus. Antibiotics are used to treat the infection. Rest, immobilization, elevation and cool compresses may help relieve pain. If joint (synovial) fluid builds up rapidly in the joint as a result of the infection, frequent aspiration of the fluid by inserting a needle into the joint may be needed. Severe cases may need surgery to drain the infected joint fluid.
