Friday, September 11, 2015

Cycle4Sepsis

What a fantastic few days this charity ride turned into.
Setting off from Lincoln Cathedral, a small group of friends and The Lincolnshire Echo turned out to see us off. (Echo article here)
Many thanks also to Chris Vaughan for shooting some of the most important images of this ride. I've known Chris since he was a teenager. In fact he did some work placement with me when he was first starting out as a snapper and he's a good friend and not too shabby with a camera!
Our first stop was less than a mile away: Lincoln's ICU. We met up with ICU's lead clinician for ICU Alan Liddle and two ward sisters: Adele and Sally.
Now, Alan and Sally had both looked after me during my 'stay' in ICU. Adele, I'm sorry to say I did not recognise BUT it turns out she too had looked after me! According to my wife, Adele had prepped me ready to go to Nottingham QMC however it turned out I was still too poorly to be moved. Adele, if you read this, really sorry I did not recognise you :(
Seeing these guys was really emotional for me and a fab way to begin this ride down to London.
Once we finally set off properly we headed down to Peterborough for our first stop and food. Kieran, our support vehicle driver, met up with us and we refilled bottles and prepared to go again with a further 50 miles down to our overnight stop in Cambridge. On the way I'd also managed to find a few comedy sign posts... here's the most tasteful! If you really want to see the others, you'll have to search Twitter! #cycle4sepsis


Cambridge finally!
The A team with our brill support driver
 Day two and we made our way over to Addenbrooke's Hospital for our departure point.


Kieran was really getting into his Tweets..Can't tell he's a copper from this Tweet can you!
A few pictures there and we headed off to Stevenage and our next port of call at Lister Hospital. Here we were met by an old friend of mine, Gill....We'd not seen each other for over 20 years! We had kept in touch on Facebook but to meet after all this time was fantastic...and she'd even sorted us some lunch out which was really appreciated! Thanks Gill x
Listers Hospital
From here we broke the ride down as Jorg's knees were suffering a bit...fair play to Jorgy... he's not a regular cyclist so to manage 120 miles on day one and another 80 on day 2 is a pretty good achievement for any cyclist! Chapeau Jorg!
So with a brief stop off in Elstree and a dodgy coffee (you'd think it would be a big old place as the film studios are here but there is nothing!...no cafes only a corner shop! Think maybe Pinewood is a bigger place but it was the wrong way for us by this point) we began our final legg for the day to Uxbridge.
A fairly easy roll into Uxbridge and meet up with the other riders at the Travel Lodge and a bit of a gathering in the local pub
In this picture you've the Lincoln, Scotland and Wales teams...soon to be joined by Yeovil and others.
After a very 'snug' night (all 3 of us shared a room!) we grabbed some breakfast and began our final 20 miles into Westminster. Now, London commands a different style of cycling and you do have to have eyes in the back of your head. Having said that, I really enjoy dodging through the traffic, so had a great time. Jorg was a bit more cautious as he'd not cycled in the chaos of London before but we saw the sights- I took him passed a few landmarks.. The Ritz, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square etc before finally zooming up and down Westminster Bridge.... There was noone there!

We were the first to arrive....but we didn't know what to do!... Okay, let's go around the corner to the public entrance of Westminster and have a look to se if anyone's there.... We saw the Sepsis Trust gazebo so we headed to that...and to big cheers and cameras...fantastic! When we got there Ron Daniels was there to greet us "Hi Phil- well done guys!! Where's everyone else?"..."erm this is it, we've not seen anyone else yet"
The applause stops. The camera is switched off
"Oh"
"erm, could you go round again and find the others and all ride in together for the TV"
*sigh* "Yes, no problem" :)
So off we go again...After fighting through the lights back onto Westminster Bridge, we finally see a couple of Sepsis jerseys and within 10 mins a good crowd of us had assembled...
TAKE TWO!
In we go and we 'arrive'

And so with a few pictures, a bit of food and drink we pop our bikes onto our support vehicle and get ready to set off. I certainly think we made some real good friends on this few days. We didn't meet many survivors but it didn't matter. We were all there for the same reason.
What did I get out of this event? An extremely emotional beginning at Lincoln ICU and a fantastic cycle with near perfect weather (we even had a tail wind) and comradeship not only from Jorg and Kieran, but also from the other teams.



Thanks to Lincoln Lexus and Allen Signs
I'd like to thank my team mates Jorg and Kieran. Jorg for doing a cracking ride. Really well done mate- that is not an easy distance to do! And Kieran for keeping us on our toes with the DRIEST sense of humor that only he could get away with...'you think about that!' (sorry- team joke)
Thanks also to James at Lexus Lincoln for the support vehicle (and to Kate McFarlane for putting me in touch with James!) and to David at Allen Signs for the livery. The car was brilliant and the graphics just set if off perfectly.
Thanks also to Ron Daniels. I've been in touch with Ron since the beginning of 2011 when there was just 24 of us moaning about sepsis to him. Cheers for being there Ronald!

Also to Terance for being the goto man for the event. Brilliant to meet up with you. Keep in touch buddy!

And finally, to all the friends who have supported and donated to my JustGiving Page. As you can see below, we raised a FAB amount...really- thank you for your support. This IS a charity WE both believe in and as you know, is very close to us.


A final note
As some of you know I had a critical illness insurance policy that would not cover me back in 2010 with sepsis not being classed as a critical illness. In November I'm meeting up with Ron and a chap called Max to discuss how we can change this around. Knowing you're not the only one is a help but I think we will have our work cut out to make a difference on this issue. I'll keep you posted!






Saturday, September 5, 2015

It's time!

This time tomorrow, I'll be in Peterborough, on my way to London, riding for Sepsis UK.
I've just done the maths and suddenly realised that (and this is today's post on Face book)
5 years ago to the day I was in Lincoln ICU. These few days on the bike will actually mark the final few days before being moved to a general ward. Not only did I have Sepsis, I had an "extensive abscess from the pancreas down around the kidney and into the pelvis.", a T tube draining bile from this area and I had also been infected with MRSA. I'd still got 3 more weeks before going home....
Very odd to thing of it especially as we will be visiting Lincoln ICU and hopefully seeing the chap who looked after me in ICU, Alan Liddle.
0900 we set off from Lincoln Cathedral
0930 Lincoln ICU
Lunchtime Peterborough
Teatime Cambridge

Monday will be
Morning set off from Addenbrookes
Lunchtime at Listers Hospital, Stevenage
Teatime meet up with all the other riders at Uxbridge ready to ride into Westminster on the following morning.

Jorg and I have raised over a £1000 ... my current total is over £700 and I'm overwhelmed. As you can see in the photo we've even got a support vehicle supplied by Lexus Lincoln with superb graphics applied by Allen Signs (big thanks to Matt and David). Thanks to Kate McFarlane for helping with the Lexus connection and James at Lexus has been fantastic and very supportive.
We must also thank the fabulous Kieran English all round good egg and copper at Lincolnshire Police for taking time out and being our support vehicle driver and soigneur.

We've also have great support from Nicola Gilroy at BBC Radio Lincolnshire. Another interview went out yesterday. You can hear it at the link below.

We'll be posting on Facebook and Twitter. Keep an eye out for #cycle4sepsis



Monday, August 3, 2015

well that was not expected!

A trip to A&E is never expected and this one certainly was not!

Having visited friends on a Saturday night, and not drunk anything really as I was cycling the following day, we returned home 1030 ish. I had a piece of bread before I went to bed and that's when it began.

I got to bed and was really uncomfy...a bit of indegestion... it'll clear. And that was that.

2am and I'm awake... something's not right- this is now hurting. I got up and went downstairs to wander about to try and shift the pain- it was all in my chest- very similar to the pains I'd experienced before my gall bladder was removed... as the early hours progressed, so did the pain until it got unbearable- I tried to make myself sick. Nothing. Went to the loo a couple of times- made no difference. OK, ambulance please.

So the ambulance crew turn up asking all the usual questions. HR low as ever (that's fine- my resting pulse is between 40-50bpm) but unusually, my blood pressure was really low. By now I was also really cold and clammy. Not good.

They tried to get a cannula in- I did warn them that my veins were all collapsed thanks to my previous hospital encounters- they always think they know better- after 4 attempts, they gave up!

So we get to A&E at Lincoln County Hospital- which for a Saturday, I thought was unusually quiet!- and they did all the usual ECG etc etc Oh and let's get some bloods- here we go again.

The nurse has a go..."erm, I think I'll leave it for the Doctor to do" (we are now at 8 attempts and they have also looked at putting one in my foot!) Doctor comes in a totally BUTCHERS my arm in trying to get some blood!. I'll point out that by now, I've had some morphine, so I was adlibbing like a good un!
"Look, it's clear you are not going to get any blood out of my arms or feet. Why don't you just get on with it and take some out of my groin... even though i know it's cheating"
"Oh, is that ok to do that"
"Yes...but it is cheating you know"
"It's not cheating Mr Crow"
"Yes it is and you know it is- just get on with it!"

In between all this, I can hear the nurses at the nurses station...
"Oh, I've not been feeling too good on this shift"
"I know what you mean. I'm not firing on all cylinders today either"
"Yeah, can't wait to finish...not been felling up to it tonight"

And we, the public- in the cubicles- can hear all this... doesn't fill you with confidence does it, especially when my wife tells me the nurse had 2 leads the wrong way round when she did my ECG (brown and purple- apparently an easy mistake to make! FML!!!)

Next we went to X-ray for a picture of my chest.... this was clear as, it transpired, were my bloods (white count slightly raised)... "Mr Crow, we'll need to redo your ECG as we had an inconsistent reading" (see above...useless!)

By now there was a shift change (must be 8am) and the new nurse assigned to me was also less than useless... didn't even know how to use the blood pressure machine. To be fair, she was agency staff, so I'll let her off this ;-)...and she didn't know how to use the ECG machine (but she DID get the leads on me in the correct places!)

Another smart ass doctor comes in and after checking the new ECG print out and all the other paperwork, has not got a scooby doo what is wrong with me, so with his 6 years of medical training and however many years on wards, his massive salary and experience leads him to... "It's just a bit of gastritis and you can go home now"

Bit of a fob off but hey... my heart and lungs are fine. I've had some morphine. I'm still in pain. Off ya pop! if it flares up again, we can put a camera in your stomach and have a look. If that was an attempt to put me off returning, IT WORKED!

It's now Monday and I'm back at work... like I have any choice as self employed. Am I better? Pretty much- my chest hurts when I take a deep breath... almost like I've been hit in the chest. Otherwise, I think I'm fine apart from my arms... I look like I've had a weekend on smack!

So have I learned anything... no late night eating for me, that's for sure! I've looked at diets for people with gall bladders removed and there is no hard and fast rules. There are blanket suggestions of fat free diets and I know eating lamb and KFC sets me off, but so far everything else has been ok. My accountant, for example (who also had her gall bladder removed) cannot drink alcohol or eat beef, so it seems to effect everyone differently.
If I discover any other foods I cannot eat (oh yes, aubergine makes me throw up though I've no idea if that's an allergy or if it is gall bladder related) I'll post the info here somewhere. 

Finally, today I got a text from the hospital...
We would like you to think about the care and treatment that you received in our A&E department. How likely are you to recommend our A&E department to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment? 1 Extremely likely, 2 Likely, 3 Neither likely nor unlikely, 4 Unlikely, 5 Extremely unlikely, 6 Dont know. Please reply today, texts are free of charge. Your feedback is anonymous & important to us. Please reply STOP if you dont want to receive any further surveys from the trust. Thank You
Hysterical!... like you have a choice which A&E you are gonna be rushed to!

Not that I have replied, but I'm sure you can guess how I'd score them!



Monday, July 27, 2015

Cycle4Sepsis on the radio

Today Jorg and I got interviewed on BBC Radio Lincolnshire about the ride.

I don't need to write about this... just have a listen instead

Once you've heard us, please DONATE AT THIS LINK!

 

Thursday, July 23, 2015

#cycle4sepsis

SPONSOR ME FOR #cycle4sepsis HERE

  JustGiving - Sponsor me now!

Blimey it's been 12 months since my last [proper] post. I guess with all the legal wranglings being over, I've kind of not felt the need to post. That does not mean I'm happy with the decisions made. Far from it. As I said to someone the tother day who foolishly asked me about it, I've absolutely no closure over the whole thing. The solicitors and the ULH basically left me in limbo with no real explanations to all the questions still rattling around in my head. For large organisations...neither of which really care (let's be honest!) about one person, they can easily forget and move on. When it is your entire life, livelihood and family that is affected, it's not so easy.

Anyway, so what has been happening in the last 18 months? Alot of cycling for sure. Achievements? Well that would have to be riding Paris Roubaix. Last year a small group of us rode the 140km route and this year we rode the full 170km with all the sectors of pavé... one of the toughest and most enjoyable events I've ever done


In between all this I discovered Sepsis UK were beginning to do a cycle event. By the time I realised, I was too late for last year's event. 

Some history on Sepsis UK...Dr Ron Daniels founded the UK Sepsis Trust a while ago. I'd been emailing him since 2011- I guess at the time I was looking for answers- and Ron was [and still is] most supportive. They began as The United Kingdom Sepsis Group ('the UKSG') which was a voluntary group of medical professionals trying to raise awareness to sepsis and the trust and charity grew from there.

When I originally set up Go With Crow, I was going to do a bike ride Lincoln to London finishing in the Olympic park. At the time this was not possible to organise (finishing in the olympic park was, I discovered, not going to happen as this was prior to the Olympics and so the area was quite secure with far too much red tape)

So the opportunity to do cycle4sepsis was perfect: Right charity and a course I'd planned to ride anyway. So now I just need a team.

A couple of years ago I was contacted by a guy who had read this blog. Turns out HE TOO had contacted sepsis at Lincoln County Hospital and for whatever reasons, my ramblings had been of use and interest to him. We had a common point of interest- The Lincoln Drill Hall. And so we met. I knew nothing about Jörg but he [having read my blog] knew everything about me. This was somewhat uncomfortable and we talked. I remember the Drill Hall being particularly noisy that day so couldn't hear all that Jörg was telling me. I also found our conversation really hard to cope with. I'd not done this before. I'm no counselor. I've not got the answers. I'm not comfy with this. Also, Jörg  had similar problems as me- gallbladder related- and he'd been transferred to the QMC...this is the place I was too ill to be transferred to...for a brief moment this had really angered me... how come he was fit enough to be moved when I was dying in ICU?... you see what shit this does to your head! It's not nice and it's not logical. It's not Jörg's fault ffs! I left thinking about it for days. It brought more flashbacks on. 

We'd arranged to meet just after Christmas and I cancelled. I couldn't cope. It took me ages to get my head around meeting another survivor of sepsis...it was like looking in a mirror. I thought I could cope. I thought I was getting over it all. Ha! Not a chance!

Since then we have met a few times and all is okay. Jörg is running which is brilliant, so I thought, let's see if he fancies #cycle4sepsis... and yes! We have a team!

#cycle4sepsis

Originally I would have liked to have had staff from Lincoln's ICU ride as well. In theory, they were saying yes but when I needed a definite answer not one of them came forward. I guess for some, when it is your job, you don't always want to 'live' it and so free time can be very precious. When you're the victim (that's a bit of a strong word, but you know what I mean) it means the world to you and becomes a conviction or even an obsession. To say I was disappointed that not even one person from ICU would ride was an understatement. But the two of us will be fine. The route is planned, hell, I even designed the jersey for the event! And we've over 50 riders from England, Scotland and Wales participating.

Too many people develop sepsis. Too few survive.

We're survivors of sepsis, bereaved family members riding in memory of loved ones, doctors and nurses (not Lincoln! LOL) all riding in to London for us all to converge onto Westminster for a reception with ministers at the Houses of Parliament and this will be the UK's way of marking World Sepsis Day. On the way down, all the different teams will be stopping off at hospitals to raise awareness of Sepsis and any other PR required.

The Sepsis 6 for healthcare professionals is one of the drums we'll be banging:

If you look it up on Wikipedia, it says- The Sepsis Six is the name given to a bundle of medical therapies designed to reduce the mortality of patients with sepsis

1. Give high-flow oxygen 
2. Take blood cultures 
3. Administer antibiotics 
4. Measure serum lactate and full blood count
5. Start IV fluids
6. Commence accurate urine output measurement
WITHIN ONE HOUR



And our charity page? Well, we're called Lincoln Sepsis Survivors. Click the link to go to the page and make a donation.

You can also text donations to 
FILY50 £10 to 70070 (or change the £10 bit to any amount)

or click here

JustGiving - Sponsor me now!

So what happens to the money? This is an important one for me. Sponsoring a charity is very commonplace with everyone doing something for their fave charity. I think it is important the we all know where the cash actually goes. So I asked Sepsis UK...
"£100,000 received last year nearly £85,000 was spent directly on fulfilling our objects. As a 'service charity', i.e. one where we need to develop clinical pathways, systems, form coalitions, deal with the government, educate health professionals etc and therefore need to employ clinical staff, our salary costs will always be higher than, for example, a grant-making charity which assesses applications and awards funds. Our priorities for this year are the development of a national exemplar system and registry for patients with sepsis, continuing professional education and public awareness, and growing our support networks."
If I'm reading this correctly 85p out of every pound is used for the purpose it was raised for and therefore 15p is admin costs. I'm not sure the larger charities can show similar figures.


Social Media Rant to 'Like' or 'RT'...neither... just sponsor me!
And while I'm on here, as useful as social media is... be it Facebook or Twitter... A 'like' or a 'retweet' does not count as helping to sponsor me...it does if you 'like' then sponsor me or 'retweet' and then put some money in the JustGiving page... you have no idea how frustrating this charity thing can be.
Rant over!