Screwed

The torpor of morphine and gabapentin, which is keeping the gnawing hyaena and white lightning at bay, make just typing this piece a marathon in itself.

Last Saturday whilst running I was hit from the right by a largish motorcycle and sustained a mild head injury, a fractured pelvis, a fractured cervical spine and multiple soft tissue contusions and abrasions.

My pelvis has been fixated and my C-spine decompressed and stabilised. My contusions and abrasions are recovering slowly. I have cervical radiculopathy from damage to the nerve roots leaving the spine. The pain associated with the nerve damage is quite unbearable at times; it feels is like my arm is being gnawed by a hyaena with superimposed lightning shocks under the gnawing pain. As a result, I am on continuous morphine and hence can’t function.

Being on an opioid for pain is not pleasant; visual and auditory hallucinations, torpor, confusion, forgetfulness and depression. A dystopian mental prison.

Once the pain settles I will be able to start the long physical rehabilitation process.

Looking on the upside I am alive, I didn’t have a major head injury, I am not paraplegic or quadriplegic, I have had no other systemic complications and the motorcyclist is okay.

I have had an outpouring of support and get well messages which have lifted my spirits. Thank you.

Thank you so much for continuing to support our Barts-MS Coronavirus antibody study. There is little doubt that since the accident there has been a surge in donations, we need to get this study done.

Too tired to type and too painful. I will try and keep you updated.

Originally published at https://multiple-sclerosis-research.org on November 14, 2020.