I've lost my toes but I'll fight on with every fibre of my being the fans who remember my goals give me heart to carry on

ONE of the strangest things I've had to deal with during my health fight was when my toes started to drop off.

- MURDO MACLEOD

The first toe to drop off, or self-amputate as they say to make it sound less graphic, came away from me on February 22, 2023.

Others would follow over the course of time until there were none left.

I wasn't traumatised by the event, and I didn't even feel a thing.

I was asked by the podiatrist who was dealing with me at a clinic in Helensburgh that morning if I wanted to take the toe away with me.

I think the lady believed she was asking me a rhetorical question for a bit of fun, so she was shocked when I asked her to put it an envelope.

I wasn't being ghoulish.

I knew then and now what's ahead of me in terms of regaining a better state of health after being on a ventilator in hospital for eight weeks and I wanted to keep the toe to symbolise the next phase of my recovery.

It's a permanent reminder of where I've been and where I'm headed now, so far as my recovery is concerned.

The time spent on the machine that was saving my life after heart surgery has left me suffering from something called necrosis.

The blood that was directed towards my vital organs as I lay unconscious on the ventilator was not getting to my toes and when that happens, body tissues die.

I didn't feel a thing because there is nothing to feel at the end of my feet.

The process is irreversible.

I will now investigate where I go from here and what can be done to help me compensate for what has happened.

In the meantime, I have to endure. It is for me, without being melodramatic, a life of pain. And that means taking a lot of painkillers to cope with the discomfort all over my feet.

I can't have a normal life back again until something can be done about that area of my body.

I'll be seen by doctors and nurses every week for the foreseeable future and, in the meantime, I have to come to terms with the kind of inactivity I haven't been used to before in my life.