My name is Faith and my amputee journey is short, right now. The other road on my journey started in 2018.

My husband had a major temporal lobe stroke. This affected his speech, language and memory. He lost 12 years of his life, which included my daughter and myself. One week after his stroke I had a toe removed due to osteomyelitis. Six weeks at Mart Free Bed he came home with some deficits, but nothing we couldn’t handle. He improved. Then I had a second toe removed.. Fast forward…2019 I had an infection in my foot after I stepped on something. Received treatment and the wound was improving. 2020 my husband had 2 strokes, 4 UTIs and bladder infection and 4 rounds of c-diff. The end of 2020 I wasn’t feeling too good but just kept going.

January of 2021 I changed medications for the wound on my foot. Almost closed, but I woke up with a huge blister on my foot. Went to the ER, they cleaned it, admitted me for a couple of days then released me. I was seeing the local wound clinic. They were helping me, one day I asked them to take my temperature, it was 103. To the ER, then ICU,in the morning transfered to another hospital. I had 4 different infections. The Dr. Didn’t think I would make it. They did surgery on the bad foot, cleaned it added a wound vac. A couple of weeks later I noticed a spot on my good ankle, more surgery and another wound vac. … 80 plus days later finally do e with the antibiotics and wound vacs. Healed.

August 2021, not feeling well, bruise on my foot. To the wound clinic, then to the hospital. On the 25th of August, the surgeon debried the wound on my right ankle, not the foot with the bruise. Many MRIs and 4 days later the surgeon came in and said ” I just can’t save your feet this time.” I was okay schedule the surgery. It’s not worth my life. August 30 done officially a bilateral amputee. A couple of weeks later, still fighting MRSA, I said,” this is great! I don’t have any pain after 20 years of my feet hurting “. They did more MISS because my infection wasn’t going away. We found it in my collar bone. They scheduled surgery and all was good again. On September 18, I was able to go to rehab. On September 30 I went home. Quite a change, living out of my wheelchair. Sometime in October I was fitted for my prosthetics. On the day after Thanksgiving , I got my legs. God is so good, I had so much to be thankful for.

Now the real work: physical therapy. I started PT on 12/3/2021. Twice a week. Boy was I exhausted. I was frustrated because I didn’t feel like I was doing well enough. I had days that I didn’t even want to look at my legs, not to mention wearing them and doing my at home exercises. Pray. That is how I have gotten through. I am almost done with my therapy for now. I am blessed to be able to be helping other amputees with their journey. As inspiring others gives me purpose. Sooner than later I will need new legs and more PT. It is all good. I have had sad days, happy, mad and glad days; yet through it all I have had faith. Even faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains.