I am 63 and live in Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK. I worked in labour relations in industry up to the age of 40, when I moved into the retail cycle trade. I had been a racing cyclist since the age of 18 Since the AAA in 1997, I have had to find other interests, and am much absorbed by computers and family history, for which I do a lot of voluntary work.
Hi, My name is Jeff Gould, and I live in Cheshire, UK. In 1997, I was 58 and a longtime racing cyclist, having my best season for 10 years. I have never smoked. Early in December of that year, I returned from a month's training in Spain, feeling exceptionally fit. On the morning of 5th December, I cycled about 40 miles before work. I have a bicycle shop. About 4pm, I suddenly felt ill, and telling my assistant that he would have to lock up, I rode home (about a mile and half). I had an ache around the waist and felt clammy and weak. Within an hour or so, I had passed out, and my wife called the emergency service. The paramedics apparently soon sussed out an aneurysm as my blood pressure was negligible. I was taken to the local hospital, and later transferred to Manchester, where I was operated on by the Professor of Vascular Surgery. I've been told that I was still bleeding the next day and had a further operation to cure this. I came to several weeks later in a renal ward.
I had suffered a rupture of the abdominal aorta, and the surgeon had removed quite a lot of additional suspect tissue below the point where the aorta divides, especially on the left hand side. I received dialysis for damaged kidneys. The main disability from my point of view, was that I had a useless left leg. The nerve controlling the knee joint had died. After physio treatment, I was able to go home on crutches in February, 1998. My formerly super-fit leg suffered from muscle wastage, as much as nerve damage. This gradually improved, but within weeks of being discharged, I was back in Macclesfield hospital with an intestinal blockage. After weeks of Nil by Mouth, surgery was needed to remove the obstruction. Recovering from this, a swelling was observed in my groin. It wasn't bothering me at all, but a tube inserted to draw off the source of the swelling, produced urine. It was concluded that my ureter had been punctured in the major surgery.
There was no easy solution to this, and, by now, 40 lb below my racing weight, it was thought that removal of the left kidney was the simplest remedy. Both kidneys were now functioning more or less normally. However, other medics urged me to elect for a stent to be inserted in the ureter, which would give the puncture a chance to heal. This procedure was carried out successfully in Manchester, with a local anaesthetic and later Rohypnol.
Discharged again, I steadily recovered to the point where, despite the nerve damaged knee, I was able to return to work, cycling there and back, albeit in a decrepit way, because my left knee required a lot of warming up before it would bend the necessary 90 degrees. With the right leg doing 80% or more of the work, I was able to cycle up fairly steep hills, but only for a few miles.
Meanwhile, I was called back into hospital in Macclesfield to have the stent replaced. The old stent was removed, but the surgeon could not get a replacement installed, probably due to scar tissue presenting an obstruction. This same scar tissue then appeared to be constricting the flow through the ureter, to the extent that it was backing up and inundating the kidney.
In 1999, I suffered a fall, breaking the femur across the hip angle. This was fixed with plate and pins, but since, I have never been able to attain the same degree of bend in the knee that prevailed before the fall. I haven't been able to discard a walking stick, but have got my range up to 2 miles. I get constant discomfort from the knee, but have a high pain threshold, and have got used to it
Since the age of about 50, I have suffered from periodic arrhythmia of the heart beat. Before the aneurysm repair, the gaps between attacks were about 4 weeks. After the operation, the gap dropped to 10 days.
Aneurysm problems such as mine, can easily be detected by scans. These would save many lives. It is difficult to get at reliable figures of the mortality rate from aneurysms. I have seen an estimate of 50,000 per annum for the UK, nearly all men. Anything that caused that sort of death rate among women would have resulted in National screening a decade ago. As it is, there is only one small Health Authority in Britain that does aneurysm screening - in Chichester. The Health Service attitude seemed to be that screening would produce a large number of remedial operations with long recovery periods, and a high risk of infection. The few that survive under the existing arrangements are much less of a drain on resources.
However, the Government has recently announced plans to introduce national screening at age 70, which does little to help the majority who appeared to afflicted a decade or more earlier. They also probably calculate that plenty of 70+ candidates for surgery won't survive it.
The Genealogical Dept at Manchester looked into various conditions that might have caused the tissue weakness and concluded that none of these applied in my case. The alternative seems to be a hereditary condition. I am into Family History, and could point to no one having suffered the catastrophic consequences that typify an aneurysm. However, I recently uncovered a press cutting concerning the death of my maternal great grandfather, age 59 in 1901. He was found dead on a train arriving at the terminus. It had been a short journey of about half an hour. He was sitting up in the corner of a compartment, believed to be sleeping. There was no post mortem. This might have been an aneurysm, but is it likely that it would skip two generations before reappearing? I am looking into the deaths of other descendants.