A young Scottish sportswoman who crowdfunded £10,000 to amputate her leg after the NHS refused to do so is to finally go ahead with the operation this month.
Hope Gordon suffered a playground injury when she was 12 which triggered complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS).
Since then, she has been in “chronic pain” and for the last six years has been begging for an amputation.
But health chiefs have told the world-class swimmer and rower, who is from Rogart in Sutherland, that she cannot have the surgery on the NHS.
She has now managed to raise enough money to get the operation done privately in the hope it will end her torment, and has finally been given a date for the procedure at a hospital in Blackpool.
Surgeon Steve Mannion, founder of charity Feet First Worldwide, will amputate her left leg on April 29, midway above her knee.
And although Hope is looking forward to the procedure, she has accepted she will not be ready to represent Britain in the Paralympics in Rio, as she had wished.
Instead the inspiring 21-year-old has set her sights on swimming for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in Australia’s Gold Coast in 2018.
She said: “I feel good about it and just want to get it over and my leg off,” she said.
“I have no second thoughts – it has been a long, long wait in which I have had plenty of time to think about things.
“Obviously there are no guarantees and we don’t know how much pain will be left. The amputation will be a success, but we will have to see if it reduces the pain. But I can’t ever remember never being in pain and it is chronic pain.
“I take pain killers but they can’t really treat the nerve pain. I didn’t have an accident or get injured, I just couldn’t walk.
“Other people have had this operation with very good results. I am hoping for that too.”
She vowed that soon as her wound heals, she will be back in the pool and in training for the Commonwealth Games, where she hopes to compete in the 100m front and back crawl.
“To all the people who have supported me I would like to thank you very much – thank you more than I can say.”
