My Journal

This is a journal of my life as an amputee and the journey I took from denial to acceptance to a way of life. I don't have a lot of memory of what happened after December 1st until December 17th, it's all a blur so I must rely on my husband and son's account of what transpired during that time. Some people have told me they couldn't sit and read the entire account all at one time, it was too emotional for them, so please, if you have a hard time reading this at one sitting, take it slowly. Bookmark this page and come back. I don't mind the company. :-)

It has been difficult at times recounting the events that took place. Some of it is painful to remember, but with the support of my family I've become a better person. That isn't to say I don't get angry or have my bad days. We're all entitled to them. Pain is still my biggest fear as well as the fear of falling. But I take each day as it comes, I pray a lot, I have faith in myself and in what I can accomplish. I use to think after the amputation, "I'll never climb Mt. Everest.", but I finally realized, my Mt. Everest is life itself and that, I can climb.

November 16, 1999
For the past month, I've had pain in my left leg. Severe enough I ended up buying myself a cane to help get me around. I ask myself now why I didn't go to the doctor sooner than I did, but I'm one of those who always thinks 'it'll go away'....this time it didn't, but I kept hoping and going on with day to day activities.

December 1, 1999
The pain in my left leg has gotten so bad now I can't sleep at night. I sat every night, crying, rocking back and forth while I held my foot in my hand. I've come to the conclusion that this won't go away and it was time to do something. I had gone to the doctor the week before and had an MRI....they found nothing. But the pain is unbearable. It's like someone has taken vice grips and is squeezing the life out of leg. I finally know it's time.

My husband called my doctor and he said to go to the Emergency Room right away. So we head out, which is about 30 miles away. Since I'm the only driver in the family I have to drive myself. The pain is excruicating while I drive. Trying to keep a clear head and my mind on the road and not on the pain in my leg and foot, is difficult to say the least. I can't help myself, but I cry the entire way to the hospital.

Once there, I realize I can't walk. My foot feels like every step is burning stones on my foot. My husband gets a wheelchair from the Emergency Room and wheels me in. I'm seen immediately and after a few questions I'm given a dose of Demoral to lessen the pain. But for some reason, the pain won't go away, not even with the Demoral. A Doplar test is done on my right foot with faint sounds of blood pumping. Then it's done on my left foot and nothing...no sounds at all. Oddly enough, I'm not scared of the Doplar test, though I should have been. I guess my faith in modern medical technology is out weighed by any fear I may have. But I still sit on the bed in the cloth covered cubby-hole, rocking back and forth wanting nothing more than to be free of the painful nightmare I find myself in.

A half hour later my husband and I are told to return to Ball Memorial Hosptial, that I'm to be admitted for tests. So back into the car we go, the 30 minute return drive is even more painful with time slowing down to a crawl. Thinking back on it, the Demerol should have knocked me out and I shouldn't have been able to drive, but the drug did nothing to relieve the pain I was in.

I'm admitted to Ball Memorial Hospital. By now the pain in my leg and foot is so severe I can't think straight. My husband tells me I was babbling, talking to myself, not making any sense. I'm put on a Morphine drip with a push button that will allow me to give myself a little more of the medication when I need it. I remember hitting the button every few minutes, hoping for relief but the drip is set to allow me a dose every 15 minutes only. It doesn't help and I'm crying most of the time.

A doctor comes in to see me, a Vascular Surgeon. At that point in time, I didn't comprehend what he was, my only thought was to end the pain in my leg. Dr. E (as I will call him) told my husband and I upfront there may be a problem with my circulation. The Doplar tests show no pulses in my left leg and my right leg signs were very faint. It was then that he mentioned amputation. The look on my husbands face should have scared the hell out of me, but the pain was still so bad, nothing registered in my brain.

For the next two days, it was a waiting game.

December 3, 1999
For two days I cried, and was incoherent from so much pain I didn't know what was going on around me. My husband told me later I was taken for x-rays, tests everyday, but I have no memory of them being done. Later I found out from one of my nurses that I was in so much pain, during the middle of the night I started singing 'Rudolph the Red Nose Raindeer'. I was yelling it at the top of my lungs. My only thought is that I was trying to get ahead of the pain with the help of Rudolph.

Finally, I was taken for exploratory surgery to see what was wrong. It wasn't until later that I found out what the reason was for the pain in my left leg. As Dr. E explained it to me, there is an artery just under the belly button that forks off to the left and right leg. Just at that fork I developed what is called an 'umbrella clot'. It formed at the juncture of the two arteries, blocking my blood supply to both legs. With the exploratory surgery he was able to clear out all of the clots in my right leg, but my left leg had so many clots that the only alternative was to amputate.

Dr. E told my husband and son who were in the waiting room, that amputation was the only thing that could be done for my left leg, it was the beginning of a new way of life for all of us.

Amputation doesn't just change 'your' way of life, it changes those around you as well. I had no idea what my husband and son were going through, because in my mind there was still hope my leg could be saved. Dr. E wanted me stable before the amputation, and I realize now he wanted me to deal with what was going to happen to my body before it happened.

The pain raged through me, day in and day out. I found out later from Dr. E that a grown man will feel no pain on 8 ml. of Morphine and hour. I was on 18 ml. an hour and it wasn't touching the pain. He was concerned a blood clot would travel to my heart, lungs or brain. If that happened, I'd die. His other concern was the amount of pain I was dealing with. He knew there would be a point when I couldn't deal with it any longer, that the time would come when I would say 'take it'. And he was right, the time did come when I could endure no more pain.

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