Former chef, Jo, has had a very challenging 8 years, with multiple spinal injuries, complex surgeries, a pulmonary embolism as well as a torn shoulder. She came to QEF when she was unable to weight bear after further surgery on her shoulder.
“2014 was the first time I knew there was something wrong with my spine. I had a cervical laminectomy which is compression on the neck, so I had 3 pieces of vertebrae taken out to release the cord in Feb 2015. The cause wasn’t clear and eventually they put it down to early onset arthritis.
I got better initially, but a year later I was so much worse. I had no control over my hands and my walking gait was really off. I had several scans on my back and eventually they told me I had a bulging disc just above my sternum, and the pain wasn’t just in my head! A disc had ruptured and a piece of calcified disc was rubbing against the spinal cord. It spilled up and down my spinal cord. It totally floored me.
Spinal Surgery
So in October 2016 I had surgery which managed to get rid of 40% of it and I was told that unless it was life or death not to have any more surgery on my back.
I had walked into surgery but when I woke up I couldn’t feel my legs and they weren’t sure why. I was put on ICU to raise my blood pressure to see if that sparked any movement and after about 30 hours my right big toe decided to have a wiggle – I had no control over it. But any movement was good! So I was referred to the spinal centre at Stanmore as an incomplete paraplegic. I had to wait for 10 weeks in hospital before a female bed came free though.
Whilst I was there, I woke up one morning feeling dreadful, like someone was sitting on my chest. They called the doctor and he ran some tests and very quickly the nurses were all around me. They told me I mustn’t move as I had a pulmonary embolism on each lung! My dad had died from a PE so I was terrified. A CT scan showed a massive clot on each side. I wasn’t allowed out of bed to avoid a heart attack and I was petrified to sleep. After I recovered from that I hit the ground running again and I was determined to leave Stanmore on crutches, which I did on 7th March.
I fell over in 2018 and again in 2019, and I was put on bed rest each time, which put my mobility back and I needed to use a wheelchair. It took me a long time to get my confidence back on my crutches again.
Torn Shoulder
In January 2022 I was on a regular visit to hospital. The front brakes weren’t properly applied on a commode and as I stood up it swung away from me. I was stuck and had no choice but to push myself back towards the bed, but my hand caught the cot side, and the force of me falling went up through my arm into my shoulder and I was in agony. An MRI scan showed that I had ruptured the subscapularis – the large muscle that forms part of the rotator cuff. The surgeon said apparently the muscle was in ribbons. I was 3 months non weight bearing, so I couldn’t go home as I couldn’t weight bear with just one arm.
18 months later I started to lose power in my arm and I had lots of pins and needles – an MRI showed that the surgery had failed. I needed anterior capsule reconstructive surgery which happened in August 2024. Then I had to be 12 weeks non weight bearing and non-strengthening which was new for me, so I came to QEF on 15th October 2024.
At QEF
My main objective at QEF was therapy. I am fully independent which took some of the night staff a little while to get used to, especially when I was in the bathroom at night. I’ve had physio working on my legs trying to keep them going, which has been really good, especially using the therabikes. My legs have been really responsive which has been brilliant. At 12 weeks post my shoulder surgery the physio contacted my surgery team to develop a therapy plan. They upped the exercises as the weeks went on and I’m hoping to get home using my walker. I need to be able to have a life.
The last 8 years a huge amount has happened, but I also feel like I haven’t done anything. I’m a fighter but I have struggled with my mental health with this, so did my family. But it has bought us closer, as I didn’t want to hide my mental health challenges from them, so we can all be more open with each other.”
