"Care journey"

I have had a lot of trouble with my little toe, it was going on for weeks and weeks.

I had seen a podiatrist prior and they didn’t know what it was and had just recommended salt baths for it. I knew it wasn’t good and I had an appt and got antibiotics and by the Monday, when I only had 3 antibiotics left, it had not improved.

I got another appointment with another doctor, which I had seen before. Clever doctor, Doctor Jeroen, at 11 o’clock at Pioneer Health in Albany. He said, “I’ve been a doctor for 23 years and I’ve never seen a toe like that. You need to go to the hospital” and I said, “what” and he said, “No, you need to go to the podiatrist at the hospital, he’s a friend of mine. I’ll give him a call.” This would have been 11:15am and he got me the referral.

He got me an appointment for 2 o’clock. I went up and he looked at my toe and he said, “I’ve never seen a toe like that.” He said it was an ulcer which is what I thought it was. I also had a sore big toe so he bandaged both toes and took samples. He said to make an appointment for Thursday, but I couldn’t do Thursday and suggested Friday, but he said “No, we’ll make it Wednesday”. Made the appointment on Wednesday and I saw Julie. Julie said, “I’ve never seen a toe like that!” She did the dressing again. They put silver strips outside on the top which is an antibiotic strip, and she put a machine around my ankle and said she wasn’t happy with the blood flow. So they got me onto a vascular surgeon.

The vascular surgeon, Dr Peter, got me an appointment at iMed and they found the problem; a blocked artery in my thigh. If they had not picked that up then, I would not have known. I had to go to Perth eventually, and I had to go by plane. I went on the Sunday, went to the hospital Monday afternoon and they did the procedure at 5pm. It was meant to be 2pm. By the following day I left in afternoon. The vascular surgeon said he would get his assistant to make me an appointment, and his assistant said I am priority. Procedure was done at SJOG Subiaco. I did have to lay flat from about 11 o clock in the morning until about 11pm that night which was the hardest part.

They fixed up the situation. When the surgeon comes back to Albany in February he’s going to check my other leg.

My instinct was right on the Monday and my instinct was right on the Friday. I have nothing but praise for the whole lot.