Getting Legless Sample

It was around this time that along with my employer, we realised that my ability to continue working was coming to an end. They’d supported me over the previous few years, but it was becoming obvious that continuing to work was having more and more of a negative impact on me, so with a heavy heart I felt I had no choice but to temporarily medically retire.

I had started to notice my mobility was also starting to get worse. I was in Tesco one day about half way round, when my calf muscles just completely locked up. The pain was excruciating and I barely made it round to the checkout. Luckily there was a bench behind the till and I politely asked the cashier if I could take the trolley through and sit on the bench to recoup, to which she very kindly told me I could. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stand so I hobbled to the bench and sat down. After something like 15 minutes, I felt ok enough to pay for the shopping and head home. 

By the time I made it back to the car, I was once again ready to collapse. I’d never felt anything like this, apart from when you do something really exercise intensive and you haven’t done anything like it for years, so you wake up the next day and can barely move. I resisted the urge to ask Google, and told myself I must have just pulled a muscle and it would settle down, but after weeks it was no better and would flare up daily.

I’d always been pretty active, raising 4 kids meant there was always something to do, something to fix that one of them had broken, some job my wife had given me because sitting around after a busy week wasn’t an option, or a child to take somewhere for something, so suddenly not being able to do anything was really taking its toll. I recall one day when I was in Newcastle upon Tyne for work, and I was walking along Dean Street, this is quite a steep street and I gradually slowed to a crawl, each step more painful than the previous. My colleagues walking with me raced ahead and I found it impossible to keep up.

I mentioned it to my renal nurse and she told me that I’d have to see my GP, so I called the next morning and made an appointment. When I saw the GP and explained it to him, he looked at my notes and said oh, I see you are on dialysis, in which case you need to speak to your renal team. I can’t prescribe you any pain killers due to your kidney issues. When you have CKD your kidneys can’t process pain killers like Ibuprofen, and it can be really dangerous, so GP’s tend to shy away and let the renal team deal with it. 

This means that unless it’s really severe, your only pain relief is paracetamol and this will become my nemesis as you’ll see when we get further into my story.

So I went back to my renal nurse and explained what the GP had said, she went off to talk to the renal doctor and came back a little later and said, the doctor says no, it’s for your GP. This back and forth continued for another few weeks until Brooke, seeing how much pain I was in called the renal department and insisted I was seen.

They told us to go straight up to the renal unit in Stoke where on arrival they’d get a doctor to see me. We’d been there about an hour when the doctor came down and I told him what had been happening. 

He asked to see my feet and asked me to take my shoes and socks off. Instantly he pointed at my left foot and asked how long has this been like this?, like what I said trying to see what he was pointing at. This open wound on the side of your foot. I didn’t even know there was an open wound, I hadn’t had feeling in my feet for years due to the diabetes. He said I need to get you in front of a vascular surgeon asap, and to wait there while he tries to find one.

I’m definitely guilty of being far too lax at times, in fact my dad always used to say if I was any more laid back I’d fall over. I wasn’t at all worried about what the doctor had just told me. Not long after I was given instructions to head to the selective surgery ward where a vascular surgeon would see me. 

I was put into a little cubicle and a lady soon appeared and closed the curtain around the bed. Again I took my shoes and socks off when she asked and she examined my feet, when she looked up she said unfortunately the open wound on your left foot is necrosis, and it’s also starting on your big toe. Your right foot appears to be ok. We need to perform a CT scan to determine how bad things are.

So that was that, I was admitted and sent for a CT scan the following morning. 

A little while later a new vascular surgeon came to see me after reviewing the CT scan. I would later learn he was one of the most senior vascular surgeons at the hospital. He was straight to the point, the scan shows arterial disease in your lower limbs and the blood supply to your left foot is not good. 

We’ll need to perform a procedure called an angioplasty to see if we can open up the veins enough to increase blood flow, but you should know that if we can’t it often leads to an amputation of the leg. The good news is that if that is the case, it would be below the knee. 

Just like my hero cardiologist, this guy was so authoritative and compassionate that I was instantly at ease despite the terrible news he’s just delivered. Whatever happened, this guy was going to be my superman and save the day, I felt sure of it.

The angioplasty was performed the next day and the surgeon doing that procedure was also highly professional and put me straight at ease. He explained that the procedure would be done under local anaesthetic and typically lasts around 2 hours. 

The theatre room was amazing to me, there was a CT scanner which the operation had to be done under, and a giant TV screen much bigger than my prized 65” at home. I was mesmerised watching this screen with an xray type picture of my leg showing the veins, arteries and blood vessels, and an instrument they would feed through the artery which had a little balloon on the end, that you could see on the screen inflate and expand the vein in real time. 

It was instantly clear to me what the problem was, instead of nice straight arteries and veins, mine were misshapen and collapsing all the way down the leg. Before I knew it, 5 hours had passed and the surgeon was still working on my leg. Eventually he said ok that’s as much as I can do and I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but I really wanted to give you the best fighting chance. Those words nearly made me cry, and I was thankful to him for doing absolutely everything in his power. 

There was an awkward moment as he stood there with his finger pressed hard into my groin. They go in with the instrument through your groin, so now the instrument had been removed he was having to press hard to make sure I didn’t bleed out. The 5 minutes he had to stand there seemed like an eternity and I desperately tried to avoid eye contact as best I could.

I was sent home the next day and told to keep an eye out on the foot for any changes. Some positive news was that they were fairly confident that my right leg would be ok which was a huge relief. 

I was also referred to a podiatrist who would visit me at home alongside district nurses to clean my foot and change my bandages. The podiatrist was lovely and as it turned out lived on the same road as me just further up. It felt good knowing that if need be and if my foot got worse I could send Brooke to go fetch her.  

A few weeks went by and each time the district nurse came out they would take photos of my foot, and it was very obvious that the necrosis was spreading very fast, and within three weeks all my toes were black along with the underside of my foot. I remember in horror asking the podiatrist would they just amputate each toe when it got bad, she said matter of factly, oh no, they’ll just fall off when they are ready. What the actual! 

I told one of the district nurses this, I felt it was my duty seeing as they’d be changing the bandage and I didn’t want them to get a shock when a toe came away with it. She just shrugged and said yeah, that’s happened to me before. The first time it really freaked me out, I thought I’d done something wrong, but now it’s just part of the course. I really didn’t know how she could do that job, I could barely look at my foot when the bandage came off.

The following week, the podiatrist took one look and said I’m not happy with the foot at all, I need to get you back in to see the vascular surgeon, and so she picked up her phone and put it on speaker so we could all hear. Her call went through to the on-call surgeon and she told him what was happening with my foot. 

To my absolute horror, he just said in a matter of fact tone, the patient has been told he may need an amputation, if he comes in now it will be for an amputation, is the patient willing for that to happen.The podiatrist was clearly shocked too at what he’d just said and looked at me bewildered. I couldn’t believe this guy was seriously asking me to make a decision like that on the spot right now, when up until that point I’d had hope that the angioplasty was going to work, so I shook my head at her. 

The surgeon then basically said, well if he won’t have it amputated I can’t help him anymore. I don’t know if the guy had just had a bad day, but that was my only experience where a doctor seriously needed to learn a bedside manner.

A few days passed, and mentally I came to terms with what needed to happen and so I asked Brooke to call the podiatrist. She told us to go straight to the selective surgery unit and tell them she had sent me, and under no circumstances accept anything other than being seen and to state there was a risk to limb. She said she would trump anyone, even senior doctors and what she said went. So that’s what we did and I was given a day the following week for the amputation to happen. 

The original vascular surgeon I’d seen was on holiday, so it would be another senior surgeon doing the operation. He instantly put me at ease, he was very funny and we had a good laugh about various things. 

Ever since my kids were little and once they reached the age of 6, I’d ask them to sign their name and I’d have it tattooed on my leg, I remember how excited they’d be when it was their turn to get their signature tattooed on dad, and they would practice and practice until they had their very neatest version. 

My ex-wife’s name was also tattoo’d there, and when I told him we were separated and getting divorced he joked how it was an extreme way to get her name removed. But a realisation that I’d lose my kids signature tattoos hit me like a brick and my heart literally broke. Brooke came up with a suggestion to trace them so I could get them redone at a later time, so she rushed to get some tracing paper. I’ve still got that tracing which is now in a picture frame that the kids gave me as a birthday present. 

One day I will get them tattooed back on somewhere. Funnily enough, one tattoo did survive and that happened to be Brooke’s, and boy does she lord it over her siblings insisting she’s obviously the favourite child. It’s of course not true, I don’t have favourites that i constantly have to remind her despite her protests.

Next thing I knew I was being wheeled down to the theatre. Due to my kidneys and reduced heart function the operation would have to be done under epidural as general anaesthetic would be too much of a risk. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, being awake while they cut my leg off! 

It turned out that I was so intrigued about what they were doing I spent the whole 6 hours trying to see what they were doing in the reflection of the overhead lights or the glass in the theatre door. 

I didn’t actually see anything and felt a little disappointed to be honest. Once it was done  I was wheeled into a recovery ward where I’d have to wait an hour or more. 

A trainee nurse who had been present throughout the operation was tasked with staying with me in recovery. She was young and we got on well despite our age difference. She asked if I felt ok, and I told her that I’d got a weird feeling like my now missing left leg was crossed over my right leg. She looked at me in utter shock and said you won’t believe this, but during the operation that’s exactly how your left leg was positioned, it was crossed over your right one. 

That was my first experience of phantom pain which is a puzzling phenomenon. Phantom pain is where you feel your limb is still there, or you get an itch or shooting pain in a toe that is no longer there. The weirdest thing is when you look down at where your toe should be and it obviously isn’t anymore, the pain or itch is exactly where the toe would have been, and so the pain or itch is just floating in midair. 

The most frustrating thing about it is of course there’s nothing there to scratch and there’s literally nothing you can do to stop it. I am very lucky, I don’t get much phantom pain but there are others who suffer severely with it and I have the deepest sympathy for them.