WHO HAS NINE TOENAILS AND TWO THUMBS?

This guy! 👍👍

I've been having an ingrown toenail treated every week since November. One of the few advantages of being here rather than the flat is that a podiatrist visits once a week. This is great - pre-COVID I was paying for a chiropodist to come cut my toenails every so often, but COVID put a stop to that! When I first moved in my nails hadn't been cut in about a year. The toenail on the big toe of my right foot has been ingrown at least since then. My toenail on my left foot basically fell off in hospital in early 2019, when I was still just about moving around.

Warning: These are not my feet! They are Mistress T's. Photos of my disgusting feet ahead!

I knew the podiatrists were planning on removing it rather than visiting me every week to look at it and dress it. I didn't know it would be today! I wasn't too worried, though I had to sign paperwork acknowledging I could go into anaphylactic shock and die. Mainly the worst part was spending twenty minutes listening to the two guys talking about their golf handicaps whilst waiting for the local anaesthetic to kick in!

I haven't mentioned the toenail before because it honestly never occurred to me, so low down is it on my list of concerns. In fact, since coming from hospital three weeks ago, I've had a doctor talk with me about:

• Blood in my urine.
• A weird skin thing on my back that keeps bleeding; I've been told the NHS views it as cosmetic and won't treat it as it's not in a place that'll stop me getting work. It'll cost £560 to get it removed. I don't care about it and wouldn't have known about it if I wasn't told about it.
• Low blood pressure, diagnosed at the hospital but not chased up because this shitty, shitty care home doesn't have a blood pressure monitor. They're £20.
• A weird skin thing on my chest that feels like a blister with a ball bearing inside. A nurse here swabbed the discharge and sent it off, but I haven't heard back  yet.
• Serious fatigue. I slept all day and night Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. I fell asleep a few times today. I'm tired right now. I don't know why!

It's the tiredness that's bugging me the most. My CPAP machine for my sleep apnoea was like unlocking a cheat code that allowed me to sleep for half the time, wake up feeling refreshed, and stay alert all day. The difference was incredible! Now that I've had my beard shaved and my hair cut it's working better than ever; I should be full of beans! But I guess I'm still fighting my infections.

I'm aware that I've been letting this blog slide. I had a pretty good streak going of keeping it updated at least every other day. I updated it from hospital. It's easier to record positive events, and I worry about crossing the line from being sardonic and self deprecating and making light of my misfortunes, to just straight up complaining and whinging and generally being a bummer. Most of all I want to write something really sexy, or at least sexual; something very unwholesome. It's hard to write sexy when you feel gross.

Last Monday my mother took a photo of my legs and e-mailed them to me! I didn't want to see them, she just did it without asking. I tend to keep my mind busy with other things. Well, I had to look at them, and now you do to!

Worse photos ahead!

The box on my bed is a present for my mum, more on that on Thursday. My right leg looks mostly normal, just a little red! The skin on the left has been awful for about eight years; since the first time I got cellulitis and developed golf-ball sized blisters! The swelling really isn't as bad as it has been, and is mostly at the back of the leg. I'll be up on these gams in no time, all being well! I'm glad she did take the photos, because it inspired me to take a look at some older ones, and I was amazed at the difference. More on that laater!

The tubigrip gathered ineffectually around the centre of my right foot is supposed to keep the dressing on my right toe in place. God knows how many carers would have seen it like that and ignored it! I really try to give this place a fair shake, and refrain from cynical hostility. I don't think anyone on the staff here is bad, but there's a lot of people who are jaded and they're all overworked. The woman who's been in the room next to me for the past couple of weeks won't ring the call bell; she'll just shout for help over and over again. Sometimes the staff shout at her. I get it; it must be difficult helping some our biddy get dressed or help some old duffer to the toilet whilst this woman's screaming for you. I admire her lung power! Obviously the concern is if she does fall nobody will come running.

I sent my housing officer an email a couple of weeks ago outlining four major concerns I've had since getting back from hospital. I mentioned that I've been paying for four carers but only ever had one or two, that my hamster heart (SVT) episodes weren't treated as emergencies, that the home doesn't have equipment as basic as a blood pressure cuff, and that I'm having to pay for Wi-Fi because the home manager hasn't got the passwords to the networks they provide. He agreed these were serious issues and that he would pass the complaints on to the council. So that's good news too.

I decided to post an old photo my mum took of my legs for comparison. This photo was taken in 2017. I was working six days a week on these getaway sticks! The lymphoedema nurse didn't understand how I was staying upright on them all day! There were no chairs in my dry cleaners; I would walk about five blocks and down a flight of steps to a bench to have lunch. They would balloon up even more (as would my abdomen and penis!) the Christmas of the following year.

You are under no obligation to read any further! The next photos are included only for the morbidly curious and for comparison against my current, relatively healthy legs. Thanks for making it this far, there is no shame in stopping here!

I'm not to blame if you don't like what you see from here on out!

Well, you asked for it! Here are the photos you wanted!

Pretty grotesque, right! In the second photo you can see that I had started treatment for them and they were being wrapped in compression bandages; that's why the skin juts out like that, a bandage had been holding it in place. You can also see how my feet wouldn't fit into my shoes and I'd stand on the backs of them. That white and yellow gunk on my legs wasn't from the dressings; it was dead skin! And the bottom photo shows you how wet my left foot would get soaking in discharge that would leak down my leg and pool in my shoe.

What's weird about these photos is that they weren't taken on a particularly good or bad day; my legs stayed this way for about two years and have slowly been getting better since.

Well, I think that covers me. I'm feeling kind of spent, but I've been worse, and am sure I'll keep getting better. Thanks for sticking with me. You beautiful weirdos who read this are the best!

Peace!

✌   🌈💰🍀