Beginning

Jan 20th, 1990

Warm days meant mischief.

Riding my bike around town with friends we stumbled across a wall of ice. It must have begun as a icicle, but it had grown all the way to the ground, which in my mind seems like 12+ feet. Once it touched the earth, it began to grow thicker, wider. It was atleast 18 inches thick at it's narrowest part. You could walk between it and the wall. So being typical kids, we figured the best thing to do was destroy it. We found some rocks and began breaking off icicles on the edge of it. It didn't seem like we could have any affect on something so massive, even with rocks the size of grapefruit. We were taking turns, each excited that our throw might be the one to bring down a chunk of ice of considerable size. It was my turn and I threw a large rock. It bounced off only leaving a white star where it had hit, and tumbled back to my feet. I picked it up and took my friends turn. This time I got a run at it, took a few steps to help my throw. Upon the rock hitting, I heard a crack and saw the wall of ice move. Defying logic, it didn't fall straight down, it teetered on it's base and fell towards me as tree would fall. I turned to run and slipped to my knees. Pulling myself up I took 3 strides, left, right, left and I dove. I remember a flash of white across my vision and the feeling of sliding across the dirt and snow, being pushed forward by the ice. I pulled myself up, but I knew something was wrong. I felt fire coming from my left foot. As I stood up on one leg, I stated to my friends half jokingly "my foot was history". My shoe was about to come off, so I slipped it off at the heel. I saw bone, blueish white bone. My vision narrowed and I had to sit. I couldn't look at it, I couldn't look down. My friends were in shock, standing with their mouths open, looking at me. Neither of them reacted as the pain started to increase. I guess I had been hurt enough times in my life to know that I needed help. I told my friends to go get help, but they didn't respond. I had to yell at them a few times to get them so snap out of their shock, to find someplace to call 911. I remember a lady came out and sat with me until the ambulance arrived. Holding me and telling me it would be ok. I don't remember her face or her name, just that she was there. In the ER I was upset because they had to cut my pants off, and I liked em. I remember the x-rays, but that is about it. The doctor set my bones and took a vein out of my right arm to try to repair arterial damage to my foot. The next week we waited, seeing if circulation was working, seeing if things would heal. But it wasn't, so I was flown to Salt Lake City. An exploratory surgery there revealed the bone was dying and the doctors were concerned about gangrene. I remember a few choices, save as much as possible or amputate higher. Cut the nerves or to leave them. For whatever the reasons I/we choose to save as much as possible and to leave the nerves intact so I would have some feeling. The next day I was brought into surgery and the partial foot amputation was done. Part of my lat muscle from my right side was removed to protect the exposed bones and skin grafts were taken from my right thigh. I remember waking up and seeing I no longer had a foot.

My memory of all this is fuzzy, like part of a dream that I can't fully bring to you conscious mind. I'm not sure how much of all of it I don't remember as a result from the pain medication or how much of it my mind decided it was best to forget. All I know was my life was changed, I was changed.

Now I am choosing to have another amputation. This path will not be easy, but I know that in the end I will be much better off. 19 years of pain from my foot and now my back have pushed me to this point. I want to eventually get to where I don't have pain on a daily basis and where the activities in my life I want to pursue, will not be so far out of my reach.