Seventy weeks ago I was crippled by medical incompetence-malpractice-total stupidity. In fact, on Saturday (24th December) it will be 71 weeks. Yes-I am counting!!
My good friend Maureen suggested I keep a journal (I have) and that I blog my experiences, and tell how this mess happened. That was about 30 weeks ago-but I couldn't sit in front of a computer and see well enough to even read emails, let alone write an email or a blog. So-I said I didn't think anyone would read this. And Maureen said- all my friends will read this, even if nobody else does. Maybe somehow my experiences will help someone else. Will that make it all worthwhile?Hell, no!!! But at least I will have done something for someone else. So read on.
In July of 2010 I went into Barts Hospital in London for a two week course of an antibiotic known as gentamicin (I call it the crippler). I had a chest infection, a bug known as pseudomonas. Where did I pick this up? At the hospital, probably. And Dr. Hilary Longhurst, my consultant, wanted me to nebulise the gentamicin (I did, and I had a reaction). I told her I had a reaction, and she said that I would have this intravenously, and that my blood levels would be monitored daily (they weren't), and that I would be carefully watched (I wasn't).
Hilary then went off on two weeks holiday, and left her registrar, Dr. Phil Bright (or, as I call him, Phil not-so-Bright) in charge. He answered to Sofia Grigoriadou, the consultant who was taking her place while Hilary was away.
I began feeling really sick-I mean, REALLY sick-after the first few days of taking the gentamicin, I almost begged not-so-Bright to take me off the drug. I said I was having a reaction; he said I was imagining things. He was quite pompous, as doctors are when they think they know everything. He said "we'll watch you".
And that was the end of me: they watched me so well that the gentamicin, known to doctors as being extremely toxic, destroyed me balance mechanism completely. The damage is total; the damage is irreversible; I have no balance, I have constant vertigo, and I have very blurred vision and difficulty in focusing my eyes. So I have trouble reading, watching any television, working on the computer, and, of course, driving is out of the question (although I have to say that, even though I am visually impaired, I am probably a better driver than 98% of the people who are driving today!!).
This is called -for those of you who are reading this and are medical anoraks (like me), bilateral vestibular hypofunction. It's a fancy term for complete destruction of the vestibular mechanism, the mechanism that controls balance (and keeps you upright).
Oh-and Grigoriadou never bothered to come to see me in my five weeks in hospital, and never apologized for being incompetent. These people should not be practicing medicine. I wouldn't trust them to treat a hamster, let alone a human!!
And where are they now, nearly 18 months later? Not-so-Bright is completing his training in Bristol, at the Bristol Infirmary, I think-probably trying to maim, cripple, or kill as many poor, unsuspecting patients as he can. Grigoriadou is still at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel (as is Hilary Longhurst). I wonder how many notches they've got on their belts!! And I am in North London, playing dodgems with people who haven't got the brains or the courtesy to move out of the way when they see someone who is clearly disabled and visually impaired trying to walk toward them.
That is about it for now, but I will continue tomorrow. I kept a diary...this will be a continuation of that diary. But-I have learned an incredible amount in 71 weeks, and I will share that knowledge with - well, anyone who wants to read this.
Who knows? Perhaps someone out there has had something similar happen to them. Perhaps someone else has had their life destroyed by medical incompetence-and perhaps my story will help someone else carry on-regardless of the pain, the damage and the suffering.
More tomorrow.
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