If I’d known that my treatment would have included chilling out reading magazines in an oxygen tent I would have gotten treatment long ago. Had I known it was going to make such a difference to my recovery, I’d probably never have felt so helpless to begin with.

Let me begin by explaining what happened to me that I ended up needing a few rounds of hyperbaric medicine. Melbourne is known for some pretty wild stuff, so let it be known that this treatment is a lot more grounded than you might think it is. Since moving here, I’ve loved finding out more and more about the incredible advances in technology that you never seem to hear about living in rural Australia.

I’d developed an ulcer on my leg that wouldn’t heal. I thought I’d contracted some deadly What definitely doesn’t help is that I have diabetes. While I was thankful that it wasn’t a necrotising fasciitis strain,I was feeling stupid as I’d simply complicated a sore by picking at it, and this had led to an infection. Which was bad enough, but i have diabetes, so treatment can be even further complicated.

Spending a few sessions in hyperbaric therapy is highly recommended for recovery. I’d never heard of it, and immediately on the hunt to learn more about it, I realised that it was quite a well studied form of therapy that was great for treating hypoxia – which is the lack of oxygen in skin tissues, which is something that can happen with skin ulcers and infections.

The best thing about the treatment is that I could do it with my eyes closed, and all it really involved was me sitting still inside a tented chamber as 100% oxygenated air was used to boost my oxygen levels and therefore healing rate. And now, I’m out!

Things have improved and my leg is almost 100% healed. The thing is, I kinda miss the quiet time in hyperbaric therapy. Not that I’d get sick again for quids but I i came to realise how valuable the quiet time doing NOTHING was. I wonder how much that had to do with my recovery?