Hugh Boyle

My family is now well into it's fifth generation of Glasgow Celtic FC supporting Boyle's, spanning 100 years on my Dad's side - I'm one of the fourth generation. One of the enduring gifts of being a football fan is the ability for a team to carry you through challenging

It's all in the title... here's an update on how I'm doing six weeks after my surgery (including some guest appearances).

This video tackles what I found to be the key things to deal with and think about, when I came home from hospital as an amputee. It's my longest video of this blog so far, but in many ways, is the most important (and has been in the works for

The truth is that nothing, absolutely nothing, could have fully prepared me for losing my leg. Not for the heart-stopping moments in the days that followed my surgery. Like the one when I looked down and saw the empty space where my leg used to be for the first time,

Without doubt, Phantom Limb Pain is one of the biggest challenges that any new amputee has to deal with. It's also very hard just to wrap your head around the idea,  so in this video I do my best to explain it and show how it's affected me since my

Yes, a piebald, motley, raggle-taggle, kitchen-sink of a playlist, but it's working for one-legged me, so...

There’s a few reasons why this is arguably the most important post thus far, on my blog. The first reason is the obvious one: it’s the first time I’ve posted a picture of myself since my surgery. So there it is, I’ve had a below-the-knee amputation

There's a whole load of stuff in this video, covering my experience of rehab, my post-amputation visit to my surgeon, my first appointment with a prosthetist and a description of how much the whole thing hurts... (or not!)

I ended up needing to stay at UTSW a day longer than planned, so I could stay on one specific IV painkiller a little while more. So the third day following my surgery was my moving day to the rehabilitation hospital. Here's my update after a tough day 2, but

An edited compilation of some post-surgery rambling...

My plan tomorrow, both before and after my surgery, is to put my headphones on and let a few songs take me somewhere else, even to be with someone else, covering all emotional and motivational needs and eventualities. As such, it's just about the most eclectic and esoteric ('My Dad's

Here we are in March. The month of ‘marching forth’ no less. And I wonder to myself whether I fully understand that this is actually happening to me? To ME. My best answer is to say ‘sometimes I have and sometimes I have not’. A few weeks ago when I

As it says on the 'Introduction' page of this website... 'Hello, my name's Hugh and I'm about to become an amputee'. Maybe click on this link [https://blue-suede-shoe.ghost.io/introduction/] to learn more about me and the reasons why I decided to document my journey to the below-the-knee amputation

On Tuesday of this week, at the hundredth time of her asking, I agreed with Mary that I should join an amputee Facebook group. I don't know why, but in the couple of weeks in which I'd been getting used to the idea of losing my leg, I'd been reluctaant

There are two answers to this question: 1. My Mum indoctinated me in the work of 'The King' from a very early age. I spent a good part of the early 1970's wearing down the vinyl on a stack of 7" Elvis 45's, watching Elvis movies and standing in front

Here's my theory: it's all part of a genetic mutation that stems back to the Bronze Age, known as the 'Celtic Curse', which amongst other things, can be responsible for accelerated osteo-arthritis in guess where... the ankle. So be warned, even if you have just a few strands of Celtic