Peter Braby and wife Anita.
All it took was a simple scratch on his leg from his son’s over excited dog for Peter Braby to develop a nasty and painful wound on his leg.
The retired Sheppey plumber, 71, wasn’t too concerned when the playful pup nicked his skin, but in a matter of days, the scratch developed into something much worse.
Wife Anita recalls: “We instantly covered the scratch but when we could see it getting worse we went to our GP and the local minor injury unit. We were really shocked when the wound kept getting bigger because we only thought it was a scratch!”
By this point, the granddad-of-four was experiencing a lot of pain. His healing was complicated by the steroids for his rheumatoid arthritis and he suffered a further set-back in February last year when he ended up in hospital
with pneumonia and lung complications.
He said: “By this point I was in quite a bad way. I was seeing all sorts of doctors for all sorts of things but one thing they agreed on was the steroids were slowing down healing of the leg. It was a bit of a vicious cycle!”
Two months later and a new wound medicine centre had opened at Sittingbourne Memorial Hospital and he was referred straight to Tissue Viability Specialist Nurse Laura Lodge.
Peter said: “Within two weeks, the wound had calmed down and the pain was gone. I visited the team three times a week for seven months and whoever I saw, without fail, they were all excellent. It is a wonderful clinic and a pleasure to visit and if I hadn’t been referred there I don’t know if my leg ever would have healed. You couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
Nurse Laura said: “When Mr Braby was referred to us he had been suffering for a long time and the wound had really deteriorated. We were able to treat it with a specialist dressing, which acted a bit like a vacuum to promote healing. It’s a great result and we are really happy to have helped.”
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