Post surgery

Since September 2013, I had only been upstairs at home about five times. Getting fed up of living on the sofa!

I had been working at home during this time, but things were taking their toll, I was on so many tablets, the pain and the lack of sleep were getting very hard to live with.

I was told that as an optimistic outcome it was possible that now the ankle had been ‘cleaned out’ the screws removed etc, it was possible that I may be able to live with the ankle in its current condition with an orthotic for support.

I continued non-weight bearing for a while, the scar was healing ok, and I was told on the Monday (March 2014) that I could do a little bit of weight bearing.

That evening at home I started weight bearing, in less than an hour my wife
was annoyed because there was blood all over the kitchen floor. I checked my foot and it didn’t look good at all. There was blood everywhere and a big lump of what I assumed to be tissue was hanging out.

At this point the same scar on my ankle had now been used 4 times, and was starting to complain about healing.

Back to the hospital every other day getting the wound redressed. The wound was checked and a sinus was found tracking 5cm, therefore the wound was now being packed every other day to try and aid healing from the inside.

The quantity of hospital stays, operations and regular out patient visits were now seriously taking their toll.

On one of these visits, I met a vascular surgeon, who said something like ‘you would be better off without that’, he also explained that as a surgeon he has a duty to do what is right to fix and maintain things, but he also could see things from a patients point of view. This set a seed in my mind.