I have to say, before we start, this story is not for readers of a sensitive disposition, but frankly there's no way of describing what happened to me without being fairly graphic. I hope people can learn from this, because taking a simple movement for granted and not paying attention to what I was doing was the sole cause of this accident.
So, anyway, after a good days training, we were having a really good game of tig at the area around the Royal Armories. Anyone who's played tig there knows that it tends to result in a pretty crazy game. So anyway, as Harrison ran towards me, I was standing on top of a wall about 7 foot high. As usual, I started to jump down to the ground on the opposite side of the wall to him. Unluckily for me, I'd failed to notice my other foot was right near the opposite edge of the wall I was concentrating so much on the flow of the game. As I began to jump, that foot lost grip and I landed cleanly on the edge of the wall directly on the gooch. The only small mercy was that I managed to somehow miss my testicles as I fell slightly backwards. Of course, because I fell onto the edge of the wall, I then had to fall off it sideways, somehow landing on my feet. Straight away there was some pretty intense pain coming from where it had hit the wall. Part of me wanted to just curl up and feel sorry for myself. Unfortunatley I wasn't going to escape with just bruising. Very shortly after that I could feel the familiar feeling of blood, only this wasn't an external wound. I was involuntarily urinating myself with pure blood. And it was coming out at quite a rate and there was nothing I could do to stop it. So, realising that walking would probably be quicker than an ambulance, I set off to LGI, about 20 minutes walk away, with the rest of the guys I was training with at the time. I have to say, walking through the streets of Leeds in fairly bad pain with blood pouring down both of my legs, pooling in my boxer shorts and gradually soaking through my trousers was one of the least pleasant experiences of my life. The involuntary urination stopped after a while but what I didn't realise is that when I wasn't consciously letting the blood out, it was still leaking out anyway, just not as fast.
Eventually, we arrived at A&E where I had to queue for reception and then explain my condition, by this time the involuntary urination of blood had started with renewed vigour. When being asked questions such as "what religious beliefs do you hold" and "do you live with your parents?" I wanted to scream "I'm bleeding out of my genitals at a rapid rate as I'm speaking to you, please find me a urologist now so that I might have some chance of having children someday!". But no, instead I was sent to another waiting area, where I proceeded to sit with Scott, Harrison and Pete (thanks for the support guys) and slowly coated the chair in a thick layer of my blood. After about 45 minutes of watching old ladies being wheeled in from ambulances and skipping me in the queue, finally my name was called. I was taken into a room with a nurse who asked me a few more questions (this time they actually seemed to care what was wrong with me). I had to go give them a urine sample, so I limped my way along to the toilet and tried to deliver the goods. I finally managed to release as it were and I can honestly say that was the single most painful moment of my life. It was like my entire urethra was on fire. I staggered back to the treatment room with a bottle full of blood, really tempted to just lie down and cry the pain was so bad. Anyway, having seen this, they decided to skip the urine tests as it was pretty obvious and transfered me to another cubicle where I was examined by a doctor and then a urologist. The diagnosis - I'd completely smashed my urethra at the point where it hit the wall and as such, it was pouring out blood which only had one way to escape. Fortunately though, it was still in tact, otherwise I'd be looking at serious problems such as being poisoned from my own urine escaping.
After this, they decided to take some blood samples and fit me with one of those drip things. Typically, despite selecting the huge bulging vein in my forearm, they missed the first time with the drip needle. Second time they hit the target but only after wiggling the needle around and moving it around a fair bit (never knew they were that long). Thankfully they hit the mark for the blood samples. By this stage, they were done with me so I was left to slowly bleed into the huge assortment of pads surrounding my lower region. Pete, Scott and Harrison had to go home at this point so I was left for an hour listening to the alarms going off and the sounds of patients moaning in pain whilst I sat in utter disbelief at what had happened to me. Thankfully though, the doctors decided I didn't need a catheter fitting! Eventually, my family arrived and managed to persuade them to transfer me to Airedale (my local hospital). By this stage, the sheets of the trolley, all the pads and my hospital gown were completely red and dripping, it looked like something from a murder scene. So anyway, I was given a pair of paper underwear, stuffed it full of dressing pads, stuck some trackies and a tshirt on and walked out to the car. However, first I had to empty my bladder again. And it hurt just as badly as the first time, seriously, I cannot imagine pain worse than that. Got to Airedale about an hour later after a not very enjoyable journey.
I was given a room and a fresh gown and gladly (by now it was midnight) tried to get some sleep. I woke up about every two hours or so, covered in blood again but too tired to care. Woke up in the morning, had a surprisingly good breakfast and my first fluids. The consultant urologist came and saw me and asked for another urine sample. Thankfully though, by this stage, it wasn't anything like as bad, same sort of pain, just about 50% less intense. This time though, the sample only had a bit of blood in it rather than the circa 95% of the other one (the blood and urine separate in the sample bottle). My blood pressure read normal and I was pleased to see my resting pulse of 45 set off the low-pulse alarm. So, with this, I was allowed to go home, a shower (to wash all the caked-on blood off) and a further stabbing and collection of blood samples later, I find myself here. Still wearing my paper underwear stuffed with a fresh set of dressings and still slowly bleeding away. Apparently the bleeding should stop within about another 24 hours. Obviously I'm rather sore and swollen where I actually hit the wall and I have a nice cut down my left shin which I was too occupied with the main injury to worry about at the time. I have to go back in a few weeks and they're going to stick a camera up there (thankfully I get a general anaesthetic for that one) and check everything's ok. I'm supposed to rest for the next few days and that's exactly what I plan to do.
So there you go, who would've thought a tiny lapse in concentration could end up with internal bleeding and one very, very sore Alistair. Train safe guys and never let your concentration slip for even the simplest of movements.
But unfortunately my bleeding got worse, I had to go into hospital so then a few days later I ended up making this post on Jam:
Hello everyone
Well, I'm back out of hospital again, the story continues.
So, I went back into Airedale on Tuesday since my bleeding was really bad overnight, kept having to get up to change my pads as they were all soaked through. On my dad's advice, I avoided having any breakfast or fluids in case they needed to do a general anaesthetic. Turns out they did, but that wasn't all there was going to be to my ordeal.
So anyway, after examining the area again and observing the bleeding, Dr Sheik decided that the best thing to do would be to put in a catheter to bypass the affected area and let it heal. Unfortunatley, he was going to try this under local anaesthetic first. I knew this wasn't going to be good. So anyway, after about 10 minutes of me lying there on my own contemplating the horrors that were about to be unleashed on me, he returned with a trolley laden with syringes and worryingly long lengths of tubing. Turns out the way they give you local anaesthetic for something like this is by squirting a gel down your urethra. Handily, to kill two birds with one stone, this gel contains an anti-septic. Result? The most unbelievable pain ever, this was worse than giving the urine sample on the first night. My entire urethra was on fire, again. And the gel kept on coming and coming and had to be "worked down the urethra" to make sure the entire length was engulfed in this napalm-storm of pain. But then slowly, the anaesthetic began to take hold and a pleasant numbness took over.
Enter catheter number one. By this stage, thankfully I couldn't feel a thing other than a large length of tubing being fed down my urethra hand over hand. Unfortunatley, this wasn't working, the tube was bending on its way down before it reached the target. So, it was withdrawn from its mission whilst the invaders decided upon a new strategy. Meanwhile, my body rebelled by discharging a lovely mixture of blood and gel onto the white hospital sheets. Naturally, in order to beat it down, this meant more gel was required, though by this stage I was too numb to feel much. Anyway, the medical staff decided to follow the age-old adage that bigger is better. So, they wheeled out the big guns, the 16 gauge catheter. Once again I had one of those "ALL of THAT is going inside me?!" moments. Unfortunatley, fate didn't even have that mercy on me. This time, it jammed at the actual point of impact between wall and urethra, the inflamed tissue raising a middle finger to the rubberised invader. However, the attackers were not to be deterred and proceeded to attempt to navigate the obstruction at least 10 times through all sorts of manipulations and efforts. But, the defence held firm. So the SS Big F**king Catheter was given an honourable discharge, clearly a new plan was required. As the local anaesthetic wore off, I realised now just how sore I was down below as a result of my struggles with the catheter. The pain was probably worse than after the accident itself, it felt like continually wanting to piss yourself and a continual burning, however, all I got out of my many toilet visits at this stage was a small amount of blood each time. I felt total despair at just how bad things had got.
Next up, they decided it was cystoscopy time. That means, they replace the catheter with a camera too see what's happened. Thankfully, at this stage, the bitch that is karma decided I'd paid for my sins already and granted me a general anaesthetic. However, they were also going to fit a catheter, and if the tear was bad, they'd simply bypass it by cutting a path straight to the bladder for it. Now I know chicks dig scars and all that but I'd rather not be left with any sort of legacy of this injury so I was hoping that they'd somehow manage to get a catheter in the traditional route rather than "Super-direct (as climbers would say)". So anyway, after pretending to read and signing about 200 consent forms giving them permission to do pretty much anything to me, into the theatre gown, onto the trolley and into the anaesthetic room we went.
Here they kitted me up with a load of stick-on pads and various other bits and pieces as part of the monitoring. The anaesthetists were really cool guys and kept me entertained so I didn't worry too much about what lay in store, or more specifically, just how sore I was going to be when I woke up. So anyway, finally, they fitted a drip tap to my hand (thankfully this was a blue, one of the smallest, LGI fitted me with a green, one of the biggest). So, the first small syringe of clear liquid was supposed to make me feel light headed, and that it did. Then, a huge syringe of whiteish paste, this was the K.O. part. My hand and then my arm began to tingle and then very gently, I knew I was on my way out. "I'm off, see you on the other side" I said. "Think of something nice" my anaesthetist replied.
The next thing I knew, I slowly came-to in the recovery room. Having had a few hours vanish from your day and having no idea where you are or what's been done to you sure makes for an entertaining few minutes while you figure out what's happened. Pretty much the first thing I did was to ask the nurse where the toilet was, I still felt like I needed it. "You don't need to anymore, you have a catheter now" she replied. Ah, good point. A quick check downstairs confirmed they'd got the catheter in the conventional route, good news. Before I'd barely come to my senses, I was wheeled back to my room. Unfortunatley, the anaesthetic was starting to wear thin by this stage and everything down below was becoming seriously painful. A nurse was dispatched to get me some pain relief, "morphine would be nice!". Paracetamol and a Tramadol were what I got. Thankfully, these did do their job, after about 20 minutes the terrible pain was replaced by a far more likeable numbness. I manage to eat some toast, even though after the anaesthetic I had a very sore and dry throat that wasn't doing too good a job of swallowing.
Anyhow, soon after Dr Sheik came in to see me, the camera showed it's not too bad a tear. The catheter is staying for 10 days and has a leg-bag so I can still walk around with it on (though tbh, I prefer not to at the moment because this means the tube moves a bit and with the surrounding tissue sore as hell, it hurts rather a lot). The leg bag holds half a litre and so has to be emptied fairly regularly, the overnight extension bag (non-portable) holds two extra litres so I can merrily sleep for half the day without interruption. So yeah, after a lesson in how to use the thing, I was sent home again to rest. Oh and no physical activity until the catheter's removed. Sigh.
So yeah, at current, life with the catheter is still rather sore and I'm binging on paracetamol and ibuprofen as often as I can. For those who wonder, you can't feel a thing when you urinate, you no longer have any control over it, the urine just flows straight from your bladder into your bag. Oh and to hold it in place? There's a small balloon in the bladder. So anyhow, hopefully life will get a bit more tolerable when I become less sore but for now there's just a lot of shuffling around very slowly and lying down. On the upside, all of this did stop the bleeding though so hopefully that means when the catheter comes out, it'll be all mended and good as new.
So, yeah, no training for me for a while!
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