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Lifestory Showcase - Chappell
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Not long after moving to Marnhu1l, everything changed, my walking days were over, no more trips abroad. Some years before Mr Vere-Hodge. the surgeon. had operated on my left hip and done a good job. It had been successful and I had walked again with no pain. Now the right hip was giving me much pain with every step I took, so I asked of he would operate now on this one. He said he could but did not want to as I would never walk again. All he could do was to leave me in a comfortable sitting position. I accepted this for I wasn't walking at all by now so it didn't make much difference.
But before he would do it, he sent me to Southampton hospital to see a Mr Brice, a neurologist (I did not know what this meant) until I realised he was talking about operating on my brain. The only part of me that I consider works properly. I screamed out “Was I the right patient on his notes?” He was very kind and sympathetic and explained what he was going to do, before I stopped him.
Under local anaesthetic he would drill holes in my head and insert electrodes into my brain. I asked, “Why. what are you talking about?” He answered, “It could steady your hands.” “Why are you talking about my hands?” I said. They were a bit unsteady but I had coped for almost forty years. He even offered me a nice wig until my hair grew again. However after he had asked what I could and could not do, he did agree that I was managing very well,; and we parted good friends.
This was forgotten, until I went to have my operation on my hip in February 1977. Several doctors spent that evening at my bedside, really bullying me to have this ‘brain-operation’ before having the hip pinned. I was frantic as they really tried to persuade me. I realised later that this would have been an experimental operation and I would have been a very useful guinea- pig.
They had already made it very clear to mother that I would never return home again after the hip operation, for at seventy she was far too old to look after me. They even suggested, that mother should sign the consent form for me. This she refused to do. Then it was suggested to me, that instead of having my operation the next morning , I should stay in hospital for a week and think about all this. I said, I was either only going to sign the consent form to have my hip-operation or I was going straight home as it was by then very late. They operated on my hip the next morning and then it all went wrong,
Mother was travelling thirty miles a day, staying with me and caring for me for the next three weeks, going home very late at night just to eat and sleep. She wasn't even offered a drink. Because of this, Vere-Hodge suggested that I went home where I had an electric hoist over my bed. There mother could manage a lot easier and it was more quiet and restful for me.
There was never any suggestion of extra help except the district nurse would appear sometime during the day. She was never there when I needed a bedpan or wash but we did have a very caring home-help who assisted with this. It still meant mother had to turn me over two or three times a day and during the night I would have to call her. How she kept going I will never know.
Mother was taking me for long walks as well. She fastened me to the arms and cushions of a big electric wheel-chair we happened to have at the time. We went out every day as it was a very nice summer and we knew every street, tree and flower in Marnhull that summer. I think these walks kept us sane.
I had been in plaster for eighteen weeks and by the end of this time I was itching and stinking. When it was all taken off in one go, I found my leg was literally hanging off. I felt so weak, I could not sit up and I was in agony. Mother somehow get me into the car, went to see Mr Vere-Hodge who then had me X-rayed again.
He wasn't able to face me directly, hid behind a screen; and asked me how I felt about having the operation done all over again because as he said “The pin is too short.” All I answered was “Yes” before I realised with what I had agreed. I was crying with pain, mother was shouting . “What has gone wrong?” Vere-Hodge said, “I am afraid the pin is too short and it will have to be taken out”. This proved to us that he never did the operation himself in the first place
As it so happened, a great friend of mine was working as a cleaner in the operating theatre in Poole Hospital. She told mother that five operations were done that morning by students, while he was going from theatre to theatre. So who did my operation? I did remember sometime later, being wheeled to the X-ray Department the day after the first operation and when the X-ray was done, two girls looked at the film. I recall how they looked at each other, horrified at what they saw, and took another X-ray right away. Nothing was ever said about this. With hindsight, however, there must have been something very wrong.
There was no bed for me the day he said it had to be repeated and so it was another week, before I was back in Poole again. Mother had to take me back home in the car by herself and we were left alone to cope somehow. My own doctor never could find out what was going on, all he ever did was write out on one prescription six big bottles of Vallium and a large box of Sleeping Pills.
What was he telling us to do? Finally, I was back in Poole Hospital in a private room and this time mother would not even go home. I found out later she was sleeping in the car with no food. I had the whole operation again and was back in plaster, but this time it only came just above my knee. I was back home after about a week for another four months, no wonder I was so weak and weepy.
I am asked to this day, “Why did you not claim damages?” What chance would there have been, since I was already a spastic? When this second plaster came off Mr Vere-Hodge told me that he was retiring the following week, so would not be seeing me again. He said “I will leave a lot of little notes about you Marjorie, for Mr Jowett who will be taking my place.”
Mr Jowett’s words were “1 don't want to know, I have not time to read all this”. He took one look at my very crooked leg which is crooked to this day1 because I was left with it bent all that time. He said. “It is just a bloody mess.” The hip had splintered badly, had been drilled twice and fused with a very long metal pin. I told Mr Jowett that I still ad the pain in my groin more than in my actual hip and that had been the cause of all the pain I had endured for years.
I had always explained this pain as a tight elastic band pulling that it just needed snipping. He seemed to know what I meant and said that he could do just that. So mother and I were back in Christchurch Hospital this time for three days. I remember seeing a clock as l went to theatre at 11 am and I saw it again at 11.20 am, so a snip it had been. There was not even a dressing on the wound. I saw them take off just a small piece of bloody cloth and put a very small plaster on it. When this was removed there was just a tiny scab. From that day to this the elastic band has never pulled again. Did I really need an operation in the first place? We will never know.
There came another year of mother and I struggling on alone except for the times when an ambulance came to take me to Blandford Hospital for heat treatment and attempts to straighten my leg. This was yet more waste of time and money, all I got from it was an aching back caused by the journey over bumps and pot-holes in the Dorset roads. I knew where everyone of these were.
Mother was still seeking help to get my leg straight now the pain was gone. I was living again and slowly getting stronger. It was arranged for me to go to Mary Marlborough Orthopaedic Hospital, where I had been before, to see if anything more could be done. Mother of course went with me (she was not going to let me out of her sight).
A very understanding Mr Nichols saw me there, he had got all my notes and studied them. He was a friend of Mr Vere-Hodge and got into contact with him. Mr Nichols said, “V.H. could not have done this himself”. He had trained with him many years ago and knew this operation for which he was well known. Mr Nichols spent most of that night with us in my room and used the same term, ‘bloody mess’.
He told us there and then, that ‘nothing more’ could ever be done to help me. My hip right up to my thigh was so damaged and splintered that if anyone else tried to do anything it would mean cutting my whole side open which could not be done. He like Vere-Hodge died soon afterwards. Many years later I went to Mary Marlborough again. This was just to find out whether with modem technology and treatment something could be done to straighten my leg. However the answer remained the same. I only hope nothing like this happens to anyone else.
I am still worried for spastic children of the 1990's who are being forced to stand and '’walk’ as I did when I was younger, wearing out both hips and their sockets every time I moved. It is bound to be doing exactly the same for these children. When I die, I want these all removed to find out what really happened and to help medical students not make the same mistake on anyone else. But all this had happened and life had to go on, and still mother stood by me and promised me as always, “Until I drop, no matter what the future brings.”
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