Moral injury / The doctor who wanted me dead |
On New Year’s Eve, at about 3 p.m., I phoned for an ambulance. The pressure sore on the weight-bearing surface of my right amputation stump – one of three on that stump – had torn open, exposing bone: specifically, the cut end of the fibula.
Although it was a pain to have to go into A&E, it wasn’t unusual. I had last been discharged from hospital a week before in Glasgow for infection of said pressure sore. The first two of my armoury of autoimmune illnesses – scleroderma, antiphospholipid syndrome, hypothyroidism, autoimmune uveitis and Sjögren’s syndrome – have caused me to have hundreds of hospital admissions over the past 26 years, and around 45 to 50 operations in theatre.
The first assessor on 111 briskly ran through the questionnaire – this would subsequently be repeated three times by other assessors. I told her the pressure sore was on the weight-bearing surface of my right stump, and explained that I was a double below-knee amputee. ‘Any change in colour of your lower leg, ankle, foot, or toes?’ she rattled off from the script. I stopped myself from saying, ‘It’s incredible – since both amputations, my lower legs have been completely transparent.’
This was the usual bizarre........