A Dundee grandad who lost his leg after a small cut got infected is looking forward to his first Christmas in his brand new ground-floor home.
Ian McConnachie was one of the first residents to move into the new Hillcrest development on Derby Street, Dundee.
And by “spooky” coincidence, his new home has the same address as the one in which his mother was born, in the old tenements that stood on the development in the 1920s.
While Ian says his new place “couldn’t be better”, the wait for it was “frustrating” and “left him feeling like a prisoner” in his third-floor property.
‘Life or limb’
The issues with Ian’s leg first started when he lost sensation in his foot and got a small cut on his toe around April last year.
Ian, who has type 2 diabetes, visited his doctor but says it wasn’t until his big toe turned jet black that further treatment was advised.
Surgeons tried fitting a bypass from his toe to groin to increase blood flow to his foot, followed by a stent inside one of his veins, but neither procedure worked.
He also suffers from Perthes disease, a bone degenerative disease in his hip on the same leg, as a long term effect of catching polio when he was aged five.
Ian believes this may have added further complications, and doctors revealed the only option left at that point was to remove his leg from above the knee.
Ian said: “They said it was life or limb and when a doctor says that to you, it’s quite shocking.
“But I felt surprisingly at ease when they said they were going amputate.
“I asked why they had to take my leg when it was only my toe that was black and they said there was poison behind my knee.
“It was traumatic but I got round it.”
Ian adapted quickly to being in a wheelchair but stairs were a real problem and his previous home on Balerno Street, where he lived for 47 years, was on the third floor.
His late wife Wilma passed away in 2009, so it was his two daughters Mary-ann and Caroline who cared for him and helped him get outdoors.
But the move to a ground-floor property has allowed him to leave on his own again.
“My daughter would help me down the stairs, carrying the wheelchair while I bumped down the stairs on my backside,” he said.
“It was rather embarrassing. I felt like a prisoner in my own home.”
He added that while he was happy to get into his new home, which fits his needs, he was sad to leave his old home, with all of its memories.
A Dundee City Council spokesman said: “Dundee City Council tenants are now starting to move into their new homes in this development.”
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