Post by steph on Mar 26, 2016 19:19:05 GMT -7
Hello again, I can only assume we all have a story to tell. Mine starts way back in 1977, the day before my wedding. My very soon to be husband and I were moving into our new one bedroom appartment, he had left to go pick up some beds so I was alone, putting as much away as I could because after the ceremony we were off to the QE2 in San Diego for a fabulous honeymoon. I stacked up a bunch of books to put away and put his "unloaded" 357 gun on the top. Walking to the bookcase I lost my load and that gun hit th e floor and fired. As soon as I saw I was dropping things I bent over just in time to see the fire of the weapon. The bullet entered my left lower leg, cutting through the tibia and fibia, luckily it missed all major arteries and missed the knee. In 1977 there were no easy or even developed ways of putting this type of wound back together. Medical science just had not come that far. No such things as plates, bolts , nothing. They had made the call at the hospital to remove the leg when one of the friends that came to the hospital with my parents said he had a favor to call in. He called an orthopedic surgeon friend up near Malabu. After discussing the accident I was taken the 160 mile trip. After several surgerys to clean up the wound and retrieve as many bone fragments as possible he literally stuck those fragments in the area that needed to knit together. He was able to save the leg but said I probably would never walk again. Speed forward 6 months and I was walking, speed forward a year, I was playing tennis and anything else I wanted to do. In 2009 the knee on the same leg finally quit working, I had a new knee put in. I kept having problems, it never felt right, I never was able to get rid of fluid. Now speed forward to 2014. I stood up out of the tub and the pain went from a 3 to 30... I went to the emergency and they found a staff infection that looked worse than any of the docs had seen. They cleaned best he could, removed the knee, packed with antibiotics and sewed me up. This happens three times before they finally put in the new knee. I did really well until Jan.20, 2016 when again the pain was awful, back to the emergency and this time we amputated above the knee. I'm sure I have written here more than anyone wants to know, it's therapy for me. I'm still dealing with highs and lows in my mood. We did everything we could to save it. During this time I had gotten so sick, I felt like I was dying, pain had been so bad for so long. When they got me in for all the testing, I was losing my kidneys and my system across the board was so messed up. The doctors said I would have died had they not found this when they did. They figured I had about a month left. Things are much better now. Damage was done that can't be reversed but I am alive. The Phantom pain is horrible and the sensation wouldn't be so bad but my foot feels like it's being crushed and cut up. It never let's up. We Ave not found the right med dosage to help yet. I'm in the shrinker, in the next 10 days I will get the silicone liner and then they will begin work on my prosthetic. Sorry for the ramblings, like I said, it's therapy fir me.