On getting the foot of A DEAD PERSON

To Frimley Park Hospital to see my consultant about the foot injury I have carried for the last three years.

After various ill-informed diagnoses we might actually be getting somewhere toward my dream of having the bloody thing lopped off and replaced by a roller-skate, a hover-board or something with frickin' laser beams.

It's been a battle to get anywhere, to be honest. Nightmare diagnoses include one horror-show of a GP who whisked me out of the door, saying it "would get better in time" before I even managed to get my shoe and sock off; and a physio-therapist who said (after a whole two sessions), that "You'll just have to get used to the pain for the rest of your life".

Arseholes, if I may be so bold.

So, after an MRI scan in which I sadly did not develop super-powers (unless it's one to be disappointed by absolutely everything I buy from Ebay), I find myself in the office of Lt. Col Somethingty-Something, consultant at the Frimley fracture clinic, clutching a cunningly-worded invitation to have my foot broken so that it might eventually grow back in the right direction.

"But that's unlikely to work," he said, "so we're probably having to look at other alternatives."

And this is the moment he started talking in upper case: "The best thing for you would to have part of the foot from A DEAD PERSON."

"A DEAD PERSON?" I ask, intoning with the same gravitas as the Doctor-Soldier.

"Yes," he replied, "We'll have to take various parts of the cartilage out of THE DEAD PERSON and put them in your foot."

"Wow," said, having run out of ALL CAPS already.

So, the die is cast. Exploratory keyhole surgery, then - more than likely - bits from A DEAD PERSON transplanted into my foot. Frankly, it's not an option I even entertained - or even knew about - before that meeting, so to say that I was thrown is an understatement.

Getting through all the usual laughing at my ordeal (I hope it's not from a sex fiend / foot fetishist / Olympic athlete / Jimmy Savile), I'm left - in turns - shocked, excited, slightly freaked out that there's somebody out there, his or her clock running down rather quicker than they realise, whose foot will live on in me. A genuine NOT-DEAD PERSON, living, breathing, laughing, hoping they're not going to get killed to death in a bizarre domestic accident with an electric juicer any time soon.

Or maybe I'm just over-thinking this.

And if The Transplant From A DEAD PERSON still doesn't work, I'd like the hover-board, please.