My wife said I was becoming ‘institutionalised’ – I just knew that I didn’t like being there. The doctor mentioned that rather than staying in hospital for another three weeks, there was an option that would get me back home sooner: Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy, or OPAT. 

It’s for patients like me who doctors judge to be ‘medically stable’ but need to continue IV antibiotics. It means we can complete our treatment in our own homes. They asked my wife and I if we’d be able to cope with it and we said we would. The next day, one of the nurses from the OPAT team came to show us what we’d have to do.

We were worried silly about it the first time but it is such an easy thing to do. Josie would get her apron and rubber gloves on, take the infusion out of the fridge, then we’d remove the old bottle and just fix the new bottle onto the tube on the infusion pump connected to my arm. And that was it, basically, for 24 hours.

Josie believes that being treated at home sped up my recovery. I reckon it gave me a new lease on life. I was glad to be out of the hospital, in my home environment. To be honest, once everything was connected, I forgot it was there most of the time. It’s there during the day and just carry on as normal. Absolutely brilliant.