The story of Ian's left leg

This is a bit of background context you need to have before the next post. When younger, I had a benign cyst on my left leg, about 2 inches below the knee just to the left side of the shin bone. Between 1990 and 1993, we were living in France, where most of this story takes place. The phrases below that I shall never forget were actually in French; I translated them to save you using Google.

One day in the autumn of 1992 I was playing squash with a surgeon named Louai Elayoubi (very nice chap), and when were finished he pointed at the cyst and said to me "I'll cut that off for you if you want - the state will pay" (and they did BTW). The following week he kept his promise, and removed the cyst under local anaesthesia.  "Use a cane for the first week, and after 2 weeks go to your doctor and have the stitches removed" said Louai, "and ease gently back into squash". To this day I believe he did an excellent job.

Two weeks later I presented at my local Medecin General and she said to me "what a beautiful piece of work, there won't even be a scar". She then removed the stitches, but broke the skin in the process. "It's not serious" she said, "leave to heal in the open air" ...

Two days later I was in ambulance that she called being rushed to my local hospital. The wound had become sceptic, infected big time. The A&E doctor widened out the wound (now there's gonna be a scar eh), and said "this is going to hurt; quite a lot". It did. Then he said "we probably killed most of it, but we cannot be sure, so we cannot close the wound. It must kept open until no pus is visible". The skin is kept separated by roll of gauze inside the mouth of the wound, and a dressing applied on top. Periodically, one removes the dressing and gauze, examines for and cleans away any pus, and then repeats at elongating periods. For the next three months I was on crutches! No weight allowed on wounded leg. We actually moved back to England whilst I was in this state. I think overall it was 6 or 8 months until (the now English ) doctor pronounced there was no infection left, and the closed the wound, after three consecutive weekly clear inspections.

Until now it was both the worst mistake I ever made - to have the cyst removed, and the worst health incident I had the displeasure to endure. Until last Saturday, I had no problem with the leg at all.