Birmingham

Our first overnight stay away from home went rather smoothly. Packing up before leaving home was ridiculous, worse than leaving home with kids, I had that much, 'just in case'. We didn't leave home till 7pm ish so had a really easy run down to Birmingham. Room was adequate and had a massive telly to keep Mark happy. We ended up only booking one room to keep costs down, so Mike had to be smuggled in, which wasn't difficult, the poor girl on reception seemed to be tearing off all over the place. Getting Mark into bed was easy enough and we all actually slept reasonably well. Our only problem was getting Mark off the bed and back into wheelchair the next morning. You would think they might make beds in disabled rooms a little higher so people can get back into wheelchairs a bit easier, but that's maybe too obvious. If we hadn't had Mike with us to help lift him off back into his chair I'd still be there now. Anyway onto why we went ...

Graham Flint seems a decent guy, down to earth and seemingly pragmatic. He only had one of Marks MRI scans because Pinderfields hadn't sent them down ... BLOODY USELESS!!

He took enough time to allow Mark to explain in detail what his situation is, how he's being affected by it etc etc, looked at the one scan he did have and from that he's certain Mark doesn't have a syrinx but what is occupying the gap in his spinal column is unusual and he didn't actually give it a name as he wasn't sure what it was. From Marks description of the pain and how and when it occurs he thinks it might be caused by 'tethering'. Tethering is when there is scar tissue around the area of the trauma and it attaches itself to the spinal canal (the spinal cord normally floats free inside the spinal canal) so when the spine is moved the spinal column can't move easily and it pulls causing pain. He can do an operation to remove the scarring and sometimes it is a positive outcome and cures the pain and sometimes it doesn't. There is a side affect in that removing one lot of scarring could cause more and create a syrinx that could move up the spinal cord and result in more loss of movement. That's the worse case scenario. We discussed how this would be done with the metal work he's got in and Graham Flint said he would remove that before he operated on the spine. It's not actually needed now, it's done it job. Mark was pleased to hear that, he feels he'd be better off without it now.

So Mark feels pretty positive about this, not least that he's talked to someone who had taken him seriously regarding the level of pain he's in and not just wanted to cover it up with drugs or trying to tell him it's all in his head. However, we've left it that Graham Flint is going to get the up to date scans, look at them, have a think about it then get back to us. Mark also has to have a think about it and decide if he wants to take the chance and have something like that done, bearing in mind the possible side affects.

Mark had tried not to put too much hope in getting a positive outcome from this visit but has come away thinking this guy could fix all his problems. My view is a little more reserved, he could come back after thinking about it and say he doesn't think he should operate because he doesn't see a positive outcome. I hope for Marks sake that's not the case but it is a possibility. So now we wait, it could be a few weeks before Graham Flint gets the scans from Pinders, then another few weeks before we hear from him again. It's just a waiting game. But at least there is a glimmer of hope now to go with the waiting.