‘You’ve only lost your leg, you’ve not lost your life’ | Latest news

A Nottingham woman who required complex rehabilitation due to previously suffering two strokes and undergoing multiple surgeries to amputate her leg has thanked the ‘amazing’ staff who enabled her to return home.

Linda Jackson, 67, of Netherfield, had previously experienced two strokes which had left her with very tight muscles down the left-hand side of her body.

Unfortunately, she then experienced complications from diabetes which led to her foot becoming gangrenous and ultimately resulted in her needing an above-the-knee amputation when doctors struggled to control the infection.

The combination of her existing issues following her previous strokes, and the new amputation, caused immense pain and made it difficult for Linda to carry out basic actions. Therefore, she required the help of the team of complex rehabilitation experts on Ward C24 at Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC) to enable her to regain her independence and return home to her life.

Linda was actually already known to NUH’s rehabilitation services as she had been receiving specialist treatment including orthotic bracing and injection treatments for muscle stiffness and spasms

Linda explained that she first noticed something was wrong when she spotted a small black mark between two of her toes, which over the next few days turned into an ulcer and progressively got worse while she waited for an appointment.

She said: “It started to really hurt. It turned into gangrene and it smelled terrible. It was then that I had a feeling I was going to lose my leg.”

Linda first had one of her toes removed and doctors tried to control the infection with antibiotics, but it continued to worsen. In September last year, Linda went to stand up at home and found she couldn’t put any weight on her foot, so she was then taken to hospital by ambulance.

She said: “The doctors explained to me that there was nothing else that they could do and that they would have to remove my leg.

“The first operation was to amputate from below the knee, but that didn’t work so they had to go back in to remove my leg to above the knee. I’ve lost 60% of my left leg.”

In December, Linda was transferred to Ward C24 – one of our rehabilitation wards at NUH where our National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) staff are currently working whilst we await the opening of the pioneering NRC building.

Thanks to specialised nursing, dietetics, psychology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and more specialist injections, just three months after arriving on C24, Linda was ready to return home.

Linda said: “The staff have been absolutely amazing; I cannot praise them enough.

“I was so glad to get onto that ward and be with the physios and occupational therapists who are all working to help me to recover and prepare to go home.”

Following an initial assessment, it was clear Linda’s pain, muscle spasms and deconditioning would require a more specialist approach to regain her ability to move and function. The rehabilitation team set about utilising the specialised therapy environment and team on C24 to achieve this.

Before the infection, Linda had been fit and active, going to the gym regularly to help keep fit having previously experienced a couple of strokes. Therefore, she was keen to regain her independence again quickly and says that attitude is the key to the rehabilitation journey.

She said: “Physio is hard – but that’s because the team are very proactive, they get you up and moving, but in a safe way.

“Sometimes you feel fed up, but you’ve got to remember you’ve only lost your leg, you’ve not lost your life. So you have to keep pushing and you have to keep trying, and you will get by.

“I even went into town by myself on the tram to prove to myself I could do it in a wheelchair.”

Since returning home, Linda and her partner Sue have had to make some adaptations to their home in Netherfield, including installing a wet room and some specialist equipment, but Linda explained that she is returning to living her life.

She added: “Life is never going to be ‘normal’, it will always be different because it has to be.

“But we still go out and about, we go to the pub, and we’re even going to Spain on holiday soon. It just means you have to do a bit more research before you go.”

Dr Javvad Haider, Consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine at Nottingham University Hospitals and NRC Clinical Lead, said:

“Without the specialist rehabilitation that our NRC teams can provide, it is unlikely that Linda would have been able to reach the level of independence she now has.

“I am glad we were in a position to provide the specialist rehabilitation Linda required in a timely manner due her  complex set of circumstances.

“Through the NRC clinical model, we are able to focus on what the person needs rather than simply what their diagnosis is, which allows us to make some of the biggest differences to the lives of people with complex disabilities.”

The NRC is a 70-bed state-of-the-art specialist rehabilitation centre for NHS patients who have experienced a life-changing illness or injury,  and will be run and staffed by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) when it opens this year.

More information about the NRC is available at www.nationalrehabilitationcentre.nhs.uk