Left Leg Healed After Great Toe Amputation

I am currently working on the video project to show the healing of my mother's left foot. She had the great toe amputated 2 years ago and this is our second bout with amputation. The first bout was with her right foot. ( See Video on right side bar)

She had an ingrown toenail, that led to an infection that got into the bone.

The great toe was removed.

She at first had a balloon stent placed in her leg. She noticed no difference in feeling in her leg shortly after the procedure. Your leg should feel warrmet or some form of increased circulation after a stent. If not it should be re-checked to make sure.

In our case they had to go higher up and do a femoral stent. It opened up the blood flow to the foot, thus allowing it to heal in good time.

Take care of your ingrown toe nails. This is a big lesson for those with diabetic feet.

We have a new nurse coordinator

Since 2005 we have had many nurse coordinators at Mayo. We now have Mindy and Barbara.
I appreciate being able to call with a concern about mom's health and always know they have the best answer. Living with a kidney transplant is a challenge. They do not show everything on the news. they make life look so happy after transplant and it is not really. You suffer from medication side effects, mood changes and some days you dont know if you will have your strength. Mom is a trooper. We ride through health changes everyday.

AARP

My mother's story was written in AARP Magazine.
I wish they had included the miracle of her having a kindey transplant at Mayo Clinic as well. Also Kudos to the Gonda 4 Cardiovascular Doctors and Team.
Dr. Sharonne Hayes is simply marvelous, so I am glad they mention her.

Viral Issue?

We are trying to troubleshoot the source of a gastronintestinal issue. We were told with tyope II diabetes will come some stomach gastric pumping issues with age.
But she recently had the flu vaccine and noticed symptoms afterwards. Very few researhers admit to gastroenteritis after the flu vaccine but my personal observation makes me believe that there can be.

Moms foot doing well

I am working on a video presentation to show you the newest healing in the left foot
We have saved another foot from below ankle amputation.

Toe Amputation Almost Healed !

We made the decision to make weekly trips to Mayo, being there every Monday and Tuesday for boot therapy and celleration mist for my mothers toe site. Her toe amputation has almost completely healed. There is just a small pin sized area that needs to fill in. This is indeed a miracle. Another case for deciding not to do a below knee amputation. We make the trip over 750 miles round trip each week and it is worth it.

Dr. Ennis- St. James Hospital Olympia Fields, IL

Since last posting update, mom has had the great toe on her left foot amputated.
The lesson learned here was that she needed to be on IV antibiotics right away, IV enterprenim, early enough in order to have given the toe a chance to be saved. Combined with femoral artery stent to the leg. The MD, who I shall not name, (back home) gave oral antibiotic meds and it did not put a dent in the infection. I feel very bad, because hindsight is 20/20 here. With better resources and information fro the beginning, I feel we could have saved the toe.

Dr. Kavros and Dr. Turner and Mayo Hyperbaric did all they could. The toe left us the weekend prior to Memorial Day. Now, We have an area where the toe has been removed which had been slow to heal. My mother cannot have hyperbaric anymore because her TCP02's are at a level where it will not make difference. it is as good as it is going to get. The toe is going forward with healing by using the expertise of Dr. Kavros, circulator boot, and celleration mist therapy.

I fielded a call from the Celleration company, who pointed out to me that a potential customer/Doctor found out about them from my blog! They asked me if I heard of Dr. William J. Ennis. I had not. It took awhile to get in to see him. I called for the appointment at the beginning of August. He is in demand. We patiently waited until our appointment today.
Meeting Dr. Ennis was time well spent. He has the Celleration mist technology available at his Wound Care Clinic at St. James Hospital in Olympia Fields,Illinois.
phone ( 708) 747-4000. Mom will be going to his office for mist therapy once a week in conjunction with continuing her weekly visits at Mayo with Dr. Kavros to help healing of this area. It was comforting to mom to learn that he knew Dr. Kavros very well and they can communicate on helping her with the healing of this area.


We were told By Dr. Kavros that this would would be slow to heal. When you hear this, the idea is not to give up, but do whatever you can to help bring circulation to the area. We did stenting, which gave the opening for more circulation to go down to her foot. We did hyperbaric. We will continue to do celleration mist and boot therapy.
My thoughts are, boot therapy for mom would be good for maintenance long term even after this wound heals.