"Life changing and painful."

Briefly, in late 2017 I underwent surgery on my feet.  I had been referred by my NHS podiatrist via my GP, to the consultation at Wycombe Hospital, where the surgeon looked at my feet and agreed that the 2nd toe on each foot needed to be removed (this was because for over five years I had constant pain and infection and required regular visits to the Podiatrist).

At that consultation we discussed the lump under my right foot that was also causing pain and problems. They stated that they could fix that by shaving off some of the protruding bone, at the same time as the amputation.

A week after the surgery and with all the surgical bandages still in place I had to go to my GP as I was not well and experiencing pain in the right foot. I was prescribed antibiotics and a new dressing was put on. The next day I was worse so my husband took me straight to A&E at Stoke Mandeville. The infection that was caused by the hospital surgery was severely infected, the sutures were intact but the skin had broken away exposing a very large and deep hole!

What followed was three weeks hospitalisation, the orthopaedic team at Stoke Mandeville did a debridement to clean this infected wound caused by the surgeon. During this surgery, this team created a new wound by making an incision approximately 3 inches long, one inch wide and very deep.  I did receive apologies for this new wound as the surgical team had believed this would relieve the infection but this was in error.

Once the original botched up wound was cleansed I was left with two large wound on my right foot, unable to walk and needing to have a vacuum pump attached to my foot.  The surgeons looking  after me, all felt that because of the damage caused that the only option was to amputate my leg from below the knee.

My story is horrific what I went through, but I was transferred to the very capable hands of the Plastic Surgery team who then needed to do another debridement.  I am also attending a Foot clinic with orthopaedic surgeons and Bone infection Unit at Nuffield.  I still have my leg, as I was stubborn about trying alternative treatments, and still have a long way to go.

I will not bore you with all the details but it has been life changing and painful.