Annus horribilis on Clare Island: Two hip operations, two bouts of Covid and a superbug

It felt like a hurricane but it was probably only a strong gale the second time MB, the ex, was evacuated from the island by helicopter last year. It was shortly after 2pm on Sunday, October 31st, as Rescue-118 rattled and hummed down on to the helipad beside Clare Island’s community centre. The princesses and I were on a Halloween visit to the island to check in on himself after his annus horribilis.

He’d had a hip replacement in January last year. A simple operation, by all accounts. So what could go wrong?

Just about everything in his case.

By the time he was being wheeled up the ramp of the Sligo-based Coastguard Search and Rescue big bird, he’d already been airlifted 10 months earlier, in February, with a fractured femur. Just weeks after his hip replacement in the Galway Clinic, he had slipped on the tiles in his kitchen and lay on the floor all night unable to get to the phone.

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Unsurprisingly, with the high levels of Covid-19 in our hospitals, he was infected with the virus whilst recovering from his first operation in Mayo University Hospital to install a plate in the thigh of his “new hip” leg. After being discharged on Day 10 of the infection to stay nearby in Westport, he deteriorated really suddenly and was back in hospital, unable to breathe and a step away from ICU.

Weeks later, he returned to the island on crutches and with an oxygen backpack and machine for night-time breathing.

It was summer now and we were all hopping on fast boats from Roonagh for regular visits to the impatient patient. He just wanted to walk out Coinne Rón again and count the sheep, to sit up on the side of Larrigan and study the bay with his canine companion, Morrison, to meet George or Michael P for a pint, and to work on the boat and talk about world affairs with Peter.

It wasn’t to be. The plate cracked again and he was off to hospital — this time on a ferry — just two days before his birthday on July 29th. We had all gathered on the island to celebrate it — barbecue at the ready; wine chilled; cards ready for marathon games of Shithead; new mad stories to be told; Tom Waits lyrics to be analysed.

Meanwhile, he was being prepared for yet another six or seven-hour operation in MUH: there would be blood transfusions and post-op ICU monitoring. There were more hours of waiting at the end of the phone; sighs of relief when he made it out of theatre.

It must have been around then he got the superbug.

What a clever little fecker it was. It managed to play hide-and-seek in his body over the following months, flaring up every now and then, causing his temperature to rise and his limbs to swell.

It was such an event that led to his emergency evacuation on that stormy November day seven months ago.

Ultimately he ended up in Cork University Hospital because of its proximity to where the princesses reside. Since I’m neither an aircraft engineer nor a bridge builder, all I can say is that the next operation involved all the steel being extracted and his broken thigh being filled with antibiotic cement. (It’s hardly worth mentioning he got Covid for a second time.)

Frankly, he looked great — in the circumstances — when I visited him last week. Recovery from his latest “new hip” operation seems to be going well and the infection seems to have been banished.

After being incarcerated in hospitals during repeated lockdowns with no visitors for long spells of time, MB is one of the lucky ones in many ways.

He had an articulate family to advocate for him; a good friend, who, as a retired consultant, could give us expert medical advice; two dedicated public health nurses on the island who were always on hand; GPs who knew how to short-circuit hospital bureaucracy when necessary; the warmth of an island community; and the crew of the coast guard helicopters.

When he was airlifted in the middle of a gale on that October day, the youngest princess, Saoirse, travelled with him. It was so windy, the pilot initially thought they’d have to land at Knock airport, but his experience and expertise in the vagaries of the wild west winds left them landing at MUH a little over two hours after they first got a call about an emergency on an offshore island.

He will be on crutches still when he heads back home, hopefully, in the coming weeks, but in the words of the Saw Doctors, MB will be humming:

• Will you meet me on Clare Island
• Summer stars are in the sky
• Get the ferry out from Roonagh
• And wave all our cares goodbye