Doctor Tosh....

As may of you know, the typist has hurt his leg falling off his bike....

.....re-enactment of almost-fatal incident......

.....well, this morning I was just enjoying some of the last of the Autumn sun with him in the garden whilst he drank his coffee when....BEEP BEEP....a little alarm sounded  and we realised that it was time to adjust his protective boot....

.....this is it....it had a big wedge inside that keeps his heel up and his toes pointing down to make sure that his achilles tendon is not stretched too much and can heal nicely....however, every two weeks he has to reduce the size of the wedge so that his ankle is taken back into a more normal alignment and the tendon is gently stretched...today was the day to remove the first of the wedges....

....I consulted the medical journals to make sure we knew what we were doing.....its a nerve-wracking moment because it would be easy to re-rupture the tendon and go back to square one.....

....i called in Doctor Tosh for a consultation....and for some added strength.....we made a careful survey of the equipment.....

....and student nurse Lola watched on.....

...Doctor Tosh began to undo the straps which held the boot in place.......

.....and once the leg had been careful extracted he dove in to retrieve the wedge.....I could not hear exactly what he was saying but I think he might have been asking for some smelling salts......

....here is the wedge...can you see that its made up of three pieces? We have to remove just one.....

..Doctor Tosh was able to carefully slice away one layer using his delicate surgeon's paws.....we put the part carefully aside in case we might need it again....

....the second stage of this operation was to reinsert the foot into the boot.....here is one we made earlier.....Typist has asked me to say that it's a clean foot and its just the shadows making it look grubby....

...I had to turn away whilst Doctor Tosh reattached all the straps and doo-dahs.....

....once the operation was complete we careful checked the strapping again to ensure the foot was firmly encased and properly supported.....

...and once he had come round the patient was allowed to take his new leg for a test drive round the kitchen.....being careful not to put too much of his enormous weight on it....gently does it....

....Doctor Tosh and I are pleased with progress so far....we will keep you posted as the day progresses....we must not stretch that tendon too far in case it snaps again...

...and we hope to have the patient back to work in the next week or two....

Clapton Md, Border Terrier Memorial Hospital....