Amputation

A Silver Spring woman has won a $2.35 million malpractice lawsuit against Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville after a misdiagnosis resulted in the amputation of several fingers, most of her right foot and left leg. Yesenia Rivera, 28, arrived at the hospital's emergency room in shock and complaining of severe abdominal pain on Aug. 3, 2006. She'd been diagnoses with kidney stones two days earlier and sent home, said Julia Arfaa, her attorney. Hospital staff, however, said they believed she had an ectopic pregnancy and did not treat the kidney problem until hours later.

She would give up her leg. Kathy Bowie knew this even before the specialists at Mercy Medical Center outlined the options. They could fuse her arthritic ankle into place, vastly limiting her ability to ride horses, or amputate below the knee. If she kept the leg, she'd lose so much more: the view from Kennedy's Peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where she and her Appaloosa mare could gaze down on the winding Shenandoah and look eagles right in the eye. She'd lose the thrill of seeing cougars flash across the bridle path, and of out-galloping swarms of angry ground bees.

FORNOSOVO, Russia - Of course, Valentina Sukharchuk said, the doctors should have told her more forcefully about the danger of diabetes, warned her that lapses in diet and medication would bring on gangrene. Even so, she refused to blame them for the loss of her legs. "Oh, no," she said in a brave, booming voice. "I blame myself. I'm not critical of anyone else. But I didn't know what could happen to my legs. They never told me about the legs. If they had showed me I could die or lose my legs - that would have been an entirely different thing."

Bob Lane thought he had survived almost unscathed. At first, the only damage from his 1999 stroke seemed to be reduced peripheral vision in one eye. But a few months later, the pain began. It began as just an odd tingling in his left leg. But over several months, the sensation became more and more painful, until it was excruciating. The strangest part of the phenomenon: Nothing at all was wrong with his leg. "It feels like my leg has been burned and I'm wearing sandpaper pants," says Lane, a retired college biology professor who lives in Bainbridge, Ga. Because the brush of a bedsheet can trigger the sensation, Lane rarely sleeps through the night.

FLINT, Mich. -- Thousands of men who limped home from the Korean War, hurt not by bullets but by relentless subzero cold, are making painful discoveries four decades later. Frost-injured limbs that once got better are unexpectedly getting worse with age.Veterans who quietly overcame their injuries are suffering today from new symptoms that include infections, skin cancer, joint deterioration and extreme sensitivity to cold. In the worst cases, men are losing limbs to amputation as infections settle into stumps and scars that lack healthy nerves and circulation.

A buzz spread among the North Carroll field hockey players as they gathered just inside the gate to their playing field and looked toward the parking lot. "Is she here? Is she coming?" They're all dressed in black shirts with the words "Team Heinle" printed across their backs. Each letter in "Heinle" has a word descending from it - Hope. Enthusiastic. Inspiring. Noble. Love. Extraordinary. All words that apply to Laura Heinle, the North Carroll varsity assistant coach who has coached most of them since they reached the school's junior varsity squad and who is now recovering from bone cancer.

After two days of heavy sedation, Erika Brannock awoke Wednesday morning in her hospital bed to dramatic and gruesome news: Her left leg had been amputated below the knee, the only medical option for a team of surgeons handling traumatic injuries from the Boston Marathon bombings. The 29-year-old Towson preschool teacher took the news with courage, relatives said. Then, unable to speak because of a ventilator tube, she wrote out a simple message: She wanted to see photos of her students.

Nina Roelke, who lost a limb to amputation, is determined to make a difference for those who face the same plight.In 1985, Roelke hadher right leg removed after it had been ravaged by a bone infection called osteomyelitis.Today, through a support group she helped found, Roelke shares her experience with people who are about to undergo an amputation, hoping to ease their sense of despair and anxiety."I will never be able to beat this disease," Roelke said. "I am still struggling with this disease, and I will for the rest of my life."

ROCKVILLE - Otis Brawley tells the story with no rancor, no anger, but with more than a bit of sadness. It is a story of his mother. Brawley heads the federal Office of Special Populations Research for the National Cancer Institute here, essentially in charge of finding out why there is a gap in cancer care for minorities and other groups and how to change that. It is a warm spring day when he tells the story. But when it is over, there is a chill in the air. His mother has diabetes; she has had it for a long time.

Nina Roelke of Westminster recently was elected president of the Amputee Coalition of America at itsannual meeting.She is secretary/treasurer of the Board of Amputee Association ofMaryland, which has offices in the James Lawrence Kernan Hospital inBaltimore.The Amputee Coalition of America is a national affiliation of amputee organizations. One of the functions of the organizations is to provide support to persons undergoing the trauma of amputation.Roelke, herself an amputee, was a founding member of the Amputee Association of Maryland, which was recognized as one of the best functioning support groups in the country.