Leg arterial bypass for short distance claudication

My name is Arthur Winston Churchill, I'm 77, born in London, now living in Amsterdam, United States. You're a diabetic, sorry? Pardon? You're a diabetic? No, no. Never been a diabetic? No, no, never been a diabetic. But you've had narrowing of the arteries to the legs. Yes, yeah. We think that's probably due to smoking. Yeah. I guess. You've never been a diabetic at all? Oh, absolutely not. You gave up smoking? Yeah, after. And your story started with a problem in your legs? Yeah. See, my job in South Wales, it's 14, 15 miles a day, for years, 40 years. and it's not strong, but it's stronger than normal. I've got this up on my leg, and I've got this spine there, and I went to the doctor and had x-rays and everything, and he said, no, you've got nothing to do with it, it's all OK. And that's when he told me, that's what happened. So your problem was you had pain in your leg when you walked? Yes, I was gradually getting less and less of this and some people, you know it was a quarter of a mile, I felt that, then it was half of that, then it got to a point, under jabs, I'd have to stop, relax for five minutes and go again, and then it'd come back and I'd stop again. So you've got a condition called claudication, intermittent claudication, that's what we call it, because of blockages in your arteries. And eventually when we did an operation for you, you were down to even less than that I think. Yeah, very painful, very very painful. Because you were a very active man, it was limiting your life. No, you know, it's alright. I'm still, you know, very active at home. Before I'd be all crazy, I'd be out in the garden, doing this, doing that, decorating. But then I'd keep stopping, you know. Or I'd go up the ladder. Have you done that? I don't think I've done that since, but I go up the ladder and I let it come down. It's in one position and I feel it. And I hate it. Because it's so hot now. It still feels a bit heavy now. It's not gone down. No, it hasn't. Remember you had a bypass, so the artery in your thigh going down to the foot was blocked all the way to below the knee. So you had a bypass didn't you? Yes. We took a vein out of your leg and plumbed it in above the blockage and below the blockage, below the knee to get blood all the way down to your foot. Tell us about that a little bit if you could. It wasn't an easy ride for you I don't think was it? It wasn't easy, but you have to, you know, when you're in a situation, you just have to go along with it, which I did. And I was a bit laid back in a ways, and I didn't have any confidence in Mr. Caffer and me and the team. And, you know, what's got to be done, has got to be done. You were a bit concerned about that bit at the bottom, wasn't you? Hmm. It wasn't quite leaning, was it? But the bypass is working and you can walk now, right? Oh yeah. Unhindered. Yeah. I'm feeling a bit heavy. Once I start moving, I'm okay. Just a little bit of heaviness. Probably a feeling of numbness where the cups are. Yeah. And also you haven't been able to walk for a while. start moving, I'm okay, but it's just got a little bit of heaviness, yeah. Probably feeling a numbness where the cuts are. Yeah. And also you had a lot of swelling in your leg after we got more blood down to your foot. Sometimes we get that. Yes. It's called re-vascularization syndrome, long word, but it just means that the legs aren't used to all that blood. Right. So when we do the bypass and more blood does get down, then And the leg swells up a little bit? Yeah. His foot swells sometimes as well. But it's, you know, it's been feeling a bit heavy. I'm on the boat, you know. You were in hospital for, how long was it? Altogether, wasn't it? Just the patient stay for the bypass. Three weeks. So a little bit on the long side. Yes. But then it was complicated with a chest infection I think, pneumonia, and then I had severe low blood pressure. Which we never really got to the bottom of. No. But the endocrine doctors, the medical doctors, tried lots of tests and worked out why that was the case. Eventually it's resolved itself I think. Yeah. So I'm okay now. I'm okay now, I won't get more giddyness. But at the time, I was only out for some minutes, two days, and I went to some A&E, and I got on a dupe here at the Dress Exchange for a week, and they actually took my pulse and my blood pressure and found it was extremely low. And from there, I went straight up to West Midlands, which took me up to West Midlands. Yeah, I used to come down on the board chair with him to do that. And then in the afternoon after four weeks, they called me the risky man, couldn't find out. It's a little bit unusual in that the procedure was basically fine. Yeah, yeah. How did it heal up fine for me, and the legs got better blood supply? Oh absolutely, yeah. But then afterwards you came unwell. Yes, and they put me back to the operation. I said, no, no, no, it's fine. Didn't I? I wouldn't have that. I said, no way, that's nothing to do with the operation, did they? But they couldn't make out my blood pressure. It really was low. It stood in there. I can see I was like 50 at one stage. And that's when I was getting giddy. It went lower than that? Went giddy for a little while, bit lower than that sometimes. I'd just sit there for five minutes. Operations can be very complicated. and we did look very carefully at whether there was any infection around the bypass. It wasn't the case. We couldn't really find anything wrong with the bypass itself. Is that the reason you became unwell after the operation? Absolutely unwell. How are things now for you? Do you have any regrets about the operation? Oh no, no, no. It's quite stupid. Has your life improved? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. You walk a lot? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, good. Two hundred percent. Worthwhile. I really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Five hundred percent. Yeah.