One year ago today had a life-changing surgery done. I had a revision done to my below the knee amputation
by Dr. Janos Ertl. Before the surgery I
was basically wheelchair bound because of intense nerve pain in my residual
limb. My constant nerve pain went from
the bottom of my stump all the way up to my lower back. I couldn’t sit in a chair or ride in a car
for more than an hour without terrible pain.
I was using opioids to help make the pain bearable. With a lot of work, my prosthetist fashioned
a leg that I could wear for up to an hour a day, but then the pain was too
great to stand any longer. I was sent by
my local doctors to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN; but even there the
doctors had no answers and said there was nothing they could do for me.
Fortunately a FaceBook friend had been politely pestering me to see Dr.
Janos Ertl in Indianapolis; and I had nothing to lose so I went to see
him. I am so glad that I did. I will admit that I was a bit skeptical when
he quickly told me he could help me. I
had the surgery done and he delivered more than he promised me. All I really expected was for a reduction in
my leg pain so I could walk again. Not
only did the ERTL revision take away all my leg pain, all the pain in my lower
back disappeared as well!!!! Dr. Ertl
gave me my life back! I’m so grateful to
Rob Pinkston for encouraging me to seek Dr. Ertl out. And I’m so very thankful that Dr. Ertl for doing
something completely different than the standard style amputation.
Here are a couple of articles to read for more information about the ERTL
procedure:
I’ve had a number of other issues in the past year that haven’t allowed
me to get back to doing everything that I have wanted to do; but the constant,
excruciating nerve pain in the residual limb and lower back is not one of them. I’m walking today because Dr. Ertl is willing
to go well beyond the limits of a standard amputation.
My original amputation was done on December 3, 2013.