T&T's first world ti­tle box­er Claude Noel is un­der­go­ing treat­ment at the Age With Joy Home in Or­ange Grove, Tacarigua af­ter his right leg was am­pu­tat­ed from above the knee in No­vem­ber last year be­cause of di­a­betes.

His nephew Ren­ny Andy Noel has been shoul­der­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on his own and told Guardian Me­dia Sports he is now con­sid­er­ing the pur­chase of a pros­thet­ic leg to al­low the ex-box­er to walk again.

Due to glau­co­ma and a surgery that went wrong, Noel, now 73 years old is to­tal­ly blind in both eyes, but his fight with di­a­betes con­tin­ues.

Jo­ce­lyn Fran­cois, the man­ag­er of the Age With Joy Home, said the box­er is gen­er­al­ly do­ing fine.

"He is com­fort­able, he is re­cov­er­ing and he is do­ing well," Fran­cois, a for­mer na­tion­al hock­ey star her­self ex­plained Fri­day af­ter­noon.

Noel was put in the fa­cil­i­ty about two weeks ago to re­cov­er from the am­pu­ta­tion, his nephew said. He is ex­pect­ed to be back at his Mal­abar, Ari­ma home in April once his progress goes well.

Noel is the coun­try's first-ever world ti­tle box­er, af­ter beat­ing El­ga­to Gon­za­les of Mex­i­co in a world ti­tle fight in the light­weight di­vi­sion in 1982. Fol­low­ing his vic­to­ry, Noel was ho­n­oured with the Cha­co­nia Gold Medal and had a high­way named af­ter him in the sis­ter-isle of To­ba­go- 'The Claude Noel High­way.'

Born in Rox­bor­ough, To­ba­go to Thel­ma Fras­er and Gabriel "Al­fred" Noel, Claude quick­ly en­tered the fray of box­ing af­ter sell­ing man­goes and oth­er fruits by the road­side. It proved to be the right move for the box­er, as he quick­ly moved on to achiev­ing the na­tion­al ti­tle.

He was al­so a three-time Com­mon­wealth cham­pi­on from 1982-1984, de­feat­ing Bar­ry Michaels in 1983 by ma­jor­i­ty de­ci­sion, clob­ber­ing Steve As­soon that same year on points, and get­ting the bet­ter over David­son An­deh, this time by a sev­enth-round stop­page.

Now, the once-pow­er­ful box­er is a shad­ow of him­self. His nephew Andy said he sin­gle-hand­ed­ly takes care of Noel's med­ical and oth­er bills and wants the T&T Box­ing Board of Con­trol or the gov­ern­ment to come to his as­sis­tance.

Last week, Andy had to ac­com­pa­ny his un­cle at the Mt Hope Med­ical hos­pi­tal to re­move pins from his (Claude's) leg, not­ing that he al­so has to en­sure that Claude's pam­pers, in­sulin, oint­ments, socks for his leg etc are all pro­vid­ed for his care.

It is un­sure of the cost for the pros­thet­ic leg but Andy said he will li­aise with med­ical per­son­nel at the fa­cil­i­ty to de­cide on when and where it will be pur­chased.