Three More Updates on Alec Muffett – and a Photo

Here we go – three more updates about Alec! These are in the order that I received them from Rachel

Update 1

Gilles Gravier has visited Alec twice over the weekend, and via Sun folk (bless you Dave) shares the attached pictorial greeting from the man himself! It’t not quite a blog entry from ICU but I was impressed.

Gilles mentions much of the news I shared last night so I won’t repeat it all however I thought this was really encouraging:

They still need him in observation as the only serious risk to his health now is if the spleen fracture reopens (say, through a rough movement of his, which he can’t really do). In which case, they would need to operate in emergency. But given that it’s been already 3 days since the accident, they are very confident that this is an extremely low risk.

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Update 2

From Bart via Rachel

This morning I dropped by the Sun office to print out another batch of messages from people (pic of card & messages enclosed) and to pick up Peter Charpentier.

We headed for Lille, met M… and picked up some of Alec’s kit (as it won’t fit in either ambulance, plane luggage compartment or the eurostar luggage rack), so that he can get it when I’m next in the UK.

At the hospital we walked in on Alec enjoying a fruit salad, and the remains of a bowl of soup where visible as well — so he was allowed both food and water.

He is still feeling quite knackered, and the difficulty one of the nurses had to find venal blood earlier this morning left him with black and blue underarms. There were now fewer tubes (fluids and vitamins), his oxygen mask was replaced by a small line, and he was — presumably to preserve his Englishness — being given brown sauce.

(Well, it’s hemoglobin, actually, but it happens to look like brown sauce. He felt it was making him feel a whole lot better, “properly inflated” as he put it)

One of the doctors dropped by and told us that they have no objections to Alec being moved, if it’s done with a doctor present and a suction machine for the tube in his chest.

His leg would be operated on in the UK (for which he’d need to be starved again, but he was happy that he’d have some food in the mean
time, at least), and there would be physiotherapy to get his lungs back up to spec — but overall things are looking pretty good.

With this good news M… went off to call the insurance company to see about arranging Alec’s repatriation (with a bit of luck he may be on his way to England tomorrow) while we chatted with Alec for a bit.

He was happy with all the well wishes he’s received and said to pass his “thank you” back to you all.

Update 3

From Bart via Rachel

I just had M… on the phone who told me that Alec won’t be moved the coming few days; based on the information the insurance company has gotten from the hospital they’re happy with the care Alec is getting in Lille, and — more importantly — feel he’s still not sufficiently well recovered to travel (as there’s still a couple symptoms that may indicate his kidneys need to heal some more).

M… is going to follow up with the insurance company to make sure that if Alec is moved it’s to England (as there’s been some talk about moving him back to the hospital in St.Omer), and that he will get repatriated when it is possible and medically sensible to do so.

We know that that will not happen before thursday (and, if it’s not thursday it probably won’t be friday — Bastille Day — nor the weekend).

One thought on “Three More Updates on Alec Muffett – and a Photo

  1. Pingback: Geoff Arnold » Blog Archive » Alec says hello

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