Amputation Decision

Hello, let me introduce myself. I am Chris Deater Christensen, daughter of Harvey Deater. On December 23, 2018 I had a below knee amputation of my right leg. Anyone with HSAN1 could be faced with the same decision. Here is the backstory of how I arrived at this decision.

I came home from vacation in January 2018 with a heel ulcer. I have no idea how it started as I check my feet every night due to my HSAN1 neuropathy. Somehow during the course of one day something caused a hole in my foot. I saw a podiatrist the week after I got home; he had me non-weight bearing for a while and then put me in an off-loading boot. By the end of March, the hole was the size of a pin, so I went back to normal shoes. In June the hole (ulcer) started to get larger so back to the podiatrist. He put me back into the boot. At this time, I had no xrays or MRI to look for infection and consequently no antibiotics. I was seeing this doctor every three weeks for debridement. By mid-July my foot and leg were very swollen. The podiatrist told me to elevate it.

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