Condition provides a footnote to my tales of surgical experience

THE pains and aches have gone after my surgery, although I have been left with a dropfoot that means I permanently wear a splint that fits in my shoe and fastens around my calf. The nerve to the foot has been damaged and it has become that old Carry On joke: What’s afoot? It’s that dangly thing on the end of your leg.

Without support, it hangs limply and cannot be controlled. Walking around the house without the splint means I have to lift my foot like a show pony doing dressage, otherwise it catches on the floor and throws me over. It’s no big deal. Sadly, my football career ended a long time ago.

The Swinging 60s and 70s led me to a strong aversion to drugs and taking even prescribed medication. But needs must when in pain and the last two years have been a voyage of discovery. One particular drug gave me lethargy and hallucinations and left me sitting in my office recliner staring into space for hours at a time. Yet a friend who had also used it said for him it had been a saviour. Different strokes.

Morphine, which I started taking when the pains got really bad, has worked wonderfully for months. But coming off it has had strange consequences, which I suppose is to be expected as it can be a drug of choice for addicts.

Walking around the house without the splint means I have to lift my foot like a show pony

doing dressage.

The dosage was reduced slowly and I thought I was doing fine until it stopped altogether. Withdrawal symptoms did not emerge until night time when I tried to sleep and became agitated and restless and my arms moved and twitched. I spent nights reading back on my office recliner until I slumped into exhausted slumber. I’m also coming off another drug which is leaving me feeling a little bereft, as if leaving a liferaft.

But it’s all been worthwhile thanks to the doctors and staff at Honley Surgery and two excellent surgeons.

One side effect, I might finally mention before closing this episode of my health for ever, is that being ill is a good way to lose weight. I have lost a stone and a half. On some of my pals, this would be beneficial, but I wasn’t overweight to start with and I now look like a pipe cleaner.