Total Rebuild and Dyno Test

Having survived two fatal road accidents in 1968 and 1979, aggravated by 'quite a few' motor racing 'shunts' over an  18 year period (none over 203 mph though - so not serious ones) and after 102 operations to put things back together again over the intervening period, I was not fazed at all, by going into hospital.

I was already a blind, diabetic hæmophiliac. Then on 29th September I went into Newcastle General Hospital for my 103rd - an operation to my spine which would last about 4 hours and entail staying in hospital for 5 days . This time, however, would be different. It lasted 8·5 hours, with a 2 months stay-in, and things went very badly wrong...

They started by removing some bone from my thigh and then attempted to get to my spine from my chest in order to decompress four vertebrae, and then keep them apart by cutting a trench into each of them and putting the thigh bone in the grooves and covering with a titanium splint screwed through everything to keep them apart.

It proved impossible from the front, so they went in and did it from my the back of my neck. Then I had a catastrophic blood loss, of 12·2 kilos of  blood, equal to 34 pints. This caused the progressive shutdown of  all my body organs and functions. Lungs collapsed, kidneys and liver failed, diaphragm damaged and all four limbs totally paralysed.

I Spent the first week of Intensive Care on Kidney Dialysis. To top it all, I quickly caught the hospital superbug MRSA. I spent a month in the Intensive Care Unit at Newcastle General Hospital, then was transferred to the Newcastle Royal Victoria Infirmary, High Dependency Unit for a week before reaching a ward, where I stayed for three weeks - they wanted me on the ward for three months, but I fought hard to 'stand up on my own', and 'walk' up and down some stairs, so that I could be allowed home.

Now I hate those crinkly white poly tiles!

Through the window I could just see one of those tall tower cranes, but oddly, day after day it never moved. When I was being wheeled out a month later I realised it was a little TV aerial! (;o))

It must have been done by a Race car electrician, because it seems it all worked.

It certainly was too good for a shipbuilder! ...Ouch!

I was being refuelled around the clock. A bit like being at Le Mans but without ever leaving the pits... you can hear all the noisy action - and the screams - are they really of 'excitement' and 'awe'?

The machine on the right is for  Kidney Dialysis. A bit like a very expensive oil filter...

They really tried to finish me off, by cutting my throat, didn't they? The Grandchildren still call it my zip.

That horrible blue thing goes from the air intake right into my engine I think it is probably a new kind of dipstick.

A picture of me from the nose down to the shoulders - the wiggly plate is in my spine and the scaffolding is my bottom jaw. The higher screws are holding my two complete  'Christopherson joint' TMJ jaw replacements.

I am now home and, hopefully, over the worst. I am now using a 'fully race-tuned' V8 twin supercharged Zimmer frame, to learn to walk again and starting to use my arms and hands etc. My walking stance looks a bit like Frankenstein's monster!

Update October 2008 - after five years, my condition remains much the same unable to walk more than a few paces - and the breathing is becoming ever more difficult due to the failed diaphragm...

Also to those who made time to came and cheer me up! 

Sorry I couldn't  speak to thank you all at the time, but I am making up for the loss of my voice now...

Ken & Lilian xxx