Before you freak out worrying about eye damage and blurred vision due to Charcot Foot…S T O P! There is absolutely no connection!! I am only tying the two metaphorically: the awful choice I was faced with after my diagnosis. The yes or no? The up, or down? The ying or yang? The this or….that! Or, ok, ok…just gonna say it: AMPUTATE, or RECONSTRUCT ? ? ?
What a horrific choice! And as you can well imagine, I cannot begin to tell you how insane this one question made my mind! For the first two months after my diagnosis I was all tore up about which I should pick, as my foot doctor said I could go either way…my choice. Like, gasp! I’d hash the concept out with a few friends, and of course family, but no one, no one could ever really answer for me. How could they?! But to be quite honest, I wanted to just have the amputation, because then I would never. Ever. (get back together) with my messed up Charcot foot ever more! Gone, never to trouble me again! And to let you in on a secret, , you want to know what else I actually took into factor, favoring the amputation? (And I am sure this will seem really whack to some of you, yet totally sane to others!) With the amputation, and a prosthetic leg, I could still wear some bad-ass boots! There! I said it. And it’s true; fashion and vanity is going to be a concern for many of us facing Charcot Foot and it’s a hell of a struggle to come around to what is really important, which is what is best for your foot. Anyhow, my Doc sensed my ambiguity and sent me for a second opinion, and his verdict was that although an amputation certainly wasn’t “unreasonable” in my situation, he felt the foot could be salvaged with a reconstruction. I made one more appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, the one who would perform the amputation if I went that route. And he made up my mind for me then and there when he said that if it were him he would try to save the foot first. (By first he meant because there is such a high failure chance at the reconstruction, in my very severe case). Three doctors steering me towards the reconstruction, so whew, there surely was my answer!
And thus, my double vision was no longer an issue, my vision became one solid view, that of reconstruction. But there are worries and concerns with the reconstruction, of course. All of us facing this knows that there is no guarantee the surgery will be a success. And even if it is, there is a risk of the foot re-breaking again at some point in the future. There is a possibility that I will end up with the amputation anyhow. (Bet you guessed this is my worst-case-scenario!) But it is not all doom and gloom…there is an equal chance the surgery will be a success, and that is what I have to focus my thought and prayers on! And my doctors are right, it is better, much better to try and save my foot, if at all possible. And since they seem to think there is a possibility, that is what I am going with!
What about some of you Charcoter’s out there…did you have to face a hard decision too? How did you handle it, what helped you make your choice? Please share your story with us here on Charcot Chacha!
Cassandra, -Charcotchacha copyright 2015