The Tale of Alex's Toe.

One of Alex's big toes has been causing his grief for over two months. He injured it back at the beginning of November when he was staying at a friend's house. Apparently, a door and Alex's toe had a misunderstanding of epic proportions. His toe lost.

I first examined the toe about ten days after the initial injury. Bright red, with an impressive amount of damaged tissue on the outside edge of the nail. Alex had been putting Bandaids on it and ripping it off on a daily basis. Surprise, surprise, the toe was showing no signs of healing.

Alex's circulation is dodgy at the best of times.Particularly at his extremities. Like his toes. Under orders from me, he visited his trusty GP, who has known Alex for 18 years. Antibiotics were administered and the toe was supposed to recover in due course.

Except it didn't. On Alex's annual Christmas visit to the House that Rocks, I noted the offending toe was still looking exceedingly nasty. Alex's pain tolerance is almost as legendary as his appetite. Hence, he has not really been paying much attention to the toe.

Back to the GP after another edict from me. This time, Dr Mark decided more drastic action was required. The toe was to have the offending wedge of tissue and nail removed. With more antibiotics, of course.

Alex also needed a lift home after the surgery. Which he rang me to fix...Fortunately, Beth Mildenhall, his fab coordinator responded in his Hour of Need and organised transport to take the patient home.

Alex duly had the Procedure last Friday. He was extremely brave and only complained a reasonable amount about the local anaesthetic. The piece de resistance was Alex's comment regarding an obvious flow of blood from the wound..he is on blood thinners after all.

"It was a miracle that my blood did not get on Doctor Mark's shirt" was Alex's summation of the whole event. Priceless.

Our autistic superstar has had the wound redressed yesterday and by all accounts, the wound is healing beautifully.

Let's just hope that this unfortunate incident does not occur again in the near future...

the perpetrator...

the result...

the hero!