Well, I have pretty much made up my mind to cancel my final foot surgery in April. The recovery from the previous one is worse than I had thought. It’s nearly a month later, I still can’t wear shoes. I’m trapped indoors, and if I really have to go out, for an appointment or whatever, I have to wear plastic bag shoe covers instead of shoes. If I knew it would be over soon it would be tolerable, but there is no end in sight. The surgical wounds keep getting infected, this is even worse than the original infection the surgery was trying to clear. I even ended up in hospital at one stage, the infection in the surgical sites got so bad.

I tried wearing shoes 2 days ago and the pain was intense and it opened up the surgical incisions. The hospital are giving me no aftercare at all, I’ve tried emailing for advice, they never respond. I’ve tried phoning, the appropriate people are never available and never call me back. I get my dressings changed at the GP surgery but the nurses there say they don’t have enough experience with this type of surgery to advise me about wearing shoes, etc.

And showering is an absolute night mare. I have to wear “LimbO boots,” in the shower, a plastic boot intended to keep the dressings dry. Not only are they extremely difficult to get on and off due to my mobility issues, they aren’t very good and often let water in. I am so sick of this whole thing.

But being virtually housebound is the worst part of all. I have mobility issues due to my stroke, but at least I could walk around outside a bit before. Even though it can be painful to walk I could still walk. I live 5 minutes from the beach, I could walk down there and sit outside for a while, have a change of scene and some fresh air. Now, unless I’m being taken to a hospital appointment, I’m indoors 24/7. This is making my mental health deteriorate on top of everything else. I regret getting the surgery, I wish I had just accepted the infection and learned to live with it.