During the height of the pandemic, with little else to occupy my time, I grabbed the leaf blower one day and cleared the pathway—just to break up the monotony of lockdown.
I didn’t bother putting on shoes since the device is supposed to blow everything away from me. I soon learned the hard way that this wasn’t the case when a stick pierced my left foot.
At first, I tried to avoid going to the doctor as they weren’t doing face-to-face appointments at the time. So I pulled out what I could myself, and it seemed fine—for a while. But as time went on, my foot began to hurt, and eventually I had no choice but to seek medical help.
“If it’s wood, the body will push it out,” the doctor advised.
Fast-forward a couple of years to 2022, and I could barely walk. Some days, I was left bedbound, as putting any weight on my foot was excruciating. This was completely out of character for me, as I take pride in looking after my mind, body and soul. Not being able to train at the gym—and losing 22 pounds of muscle as a result—was incredibly hard to accept.
I returned to the doctor and was given an X-ray, which came back clear. I later learned that standard X-rays don’t detect wood. I wanted to request a different type of scan, but I was made to feel like it was psychological rather than a physical issue, and began questioning whether my pain was even real.
Over the next three years, my health deteriorated further. I visited the doctor multiple times but was repeatedly dismissed and told my issues were due to anxiety, given my mental health history. They even prescribed me antidepressants. But the medication didn’t stop the seizures—sometimes happening more than once a day—or the chronic fatigue that left me barely able to work as a DJ. My body couldn’t regulate its own temperature, and I constantly felt like I was falling apart.
I was confused yet conscious, as though I had no control over my movements. My coordination was severely impaired. I consulted psychiatrists, psychologists and more doctors, but the go-to answer seemed to be mental health. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t depressed. I told them repeatedly that I was in physical pain. It was mentally exhausting to be dismissed so easily.
As time went on, I even started to question myself. Maybe I was being a hypochondriac—or maybe it was ADHD?
Then, a breakthrough came while I was working at a music festival that required a 10-hour drive from my hometown, Brisbane, Queensland, to New South Wales. When I returned, my foot had swollen dramatically and turned into a large lump, which eventually became an abscess by the time I made it to the doctor. They suspected it was a benign cyst, known as a ganglion.
When the abscess burst, I panicked. I was sent home with antibiotics, but it didn’t sit right with me. I decided to find a new doctor. In January this year, for the first time in five years, someone finally took me seriously and agreed to run more thorough scans without dismissing me.
I had 16 appointments in January alone before finally receiving a diagnosis: osteomyelitis—a serious infection that occurs when bacteria or fungi infect the bone marrow.
Ten weeks later, on March 26, I was hospitalized for two weeks. Surgeons cut through the site where the cyst had been, near the joint where the top of the foot connects to the leg. They cleaned out the infection, shaved part of the bone, removed the 2cm x 0.4 mm splinter, and took samples to determine the exact cause of the infection.
Since then, I’ve only had one seizure, but the extreme fatigue remains. My biggest concern now is the chain reaction this infection has triggered in my body.
Throughout it all, I’ve stayed positive and fought hard to protect my mental health. I truly believe that sometimes our greatest downfalls can turn into our greatest blessings. I’ve used this time to learn and grow, but it’s bittersweet. I had a good career in music for 18 years and felt like it was taking off, then COVID hit, and that was hard enough, but then to lose more years to illness was devastating.
Today, I try not to dwell on what has happened, and I’m focusing on getting back to good health, and I hope to someday progress with my music career.
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