The Beginning

For those of you who don't know me personally, I am going to start by giving a little bit of background information to give you an idea of how I came to be in the position of facing a below knee amputation.
I am a 49 year old woman who inherited extremely bad veinage {if that is even a word lol} Thank you Dad! R.I.P. I agreed to a Femoral Tibial Bypass to correct  a fully blocked Femoral artery in my right leg in March of 2009. This in itself, was a big step for me, because I eschew (as my vascular surgeon puts it) conventional prescription and over the counter drugs. The only way I would let this surgeon perform this operation was if he would do it with local anesthetic, no sedatives and no painkillers. My doctor agreed and so the 1st operation took place. Unfortunately, they were using one of my own veins, in the procedure and because, as my doctor puts it, "my veins are crap", the new "artery" collapsed and occluded within 24 hours ;-( I returned home, healed for 10 weeks and returned on May 28th, 2009 for round 2 only this time, my doctor was installing a Gortex artery. He replaced the majority of my Femoral artery with this white tube that looked and had the diameter of a common crinckle straw.The difference was phenomenal and for a little over a year, dispite a fair amount of collateral damage, as I like to call it; no feeling below my knee etc, life was good and I was getting stronger daily.
On June 21, 2010 at 4:10 in the morning, excruciating pain woke me out of a deep sleep ;-( I had never in my life experienced pain the likes of that morning, not even in childbirth. Just as an aside here, it is the weirdest feeling when your brain is telling you one thing and your eyes are telling you another because I thought that my foot was going to explode; it felt like it HAD to be as big as a basketball. Imagine my shock to whip back the covers only to find a normal sized foot, that certainly did not fit the signals being sent to my brain but was sickeningly blue ;-/ This, I learned later, is askemia {sp?}
So, after my very first ride in an ambulance; and here is where I formally apologize to the wonderful EMT's whom I am sure I freaked out by not allowing them to give me anything for pain or my apparent high blood pressure, but it's my body and my rights so there. ;-P Thank you for getting me to the hospital fast though ;-D My vascular surgeon met me at the hospital and I underwent an emergency surgery, to clean out my clogged artery. Needless to say, time would not allow for a local anesthetic for the 3rd time so I consented to a general much to my dismay.
When I awoke, my doctor explained it to me like this: 1st of all they had no idea why the Gortex had clotted especially because it was state of the art and so new that they had to get special permission to use it as the lining of the fake artery was biologically infused with Heparin {a blood thinner} which was to prevent exactly what I had experienced. Sadly, he agreed with me that it was a little like "breaking your seal" at the bar lol once it happens, its not a matter of "if" it will happen again but when.
When came less than 4 months later and I was told officially that the artery had failed for the second time on November 1, 2010 and that going in to clean it out was not an option at this time. Basically, I was going to have to suffer with almost no circulation to my right leg. I asked, "can a person live this way?" and was told yes but eventually the tissue would start to die with no blood and oh, it can be quite painful lmao as if I didn't already know THAT! My doctor also told me that he felt he could probably only go back in 1 more time to clean it out so wanted to reserve that option for a more pressing emergency if there was one. I went home shaking my head. How was this to be? Did I hear correctly? He said there was nothing further he could do and that I basically had to wait for my foot to "die" before he could do anything else.
Well I lived with my quality of life deteriorating fast; gained weight from inactivity; lost muscle mass & mobility and fought depression that would have been easy to slip into. I made an appointment to talk to my doctor. I wanted him to explain to me again where he thought I was at and when he did I asked him the question that I had been plagueing me from the first time he explained: "Why are we waiting then?"
Granted, A, amputation is an irreversible operation but I have already been told that because they have already tried artificial means to correct my vascular dilemma and it has failed  that amputation is, short of a miracle, inevitable. Plus, I am going to be 50 this year and healing among other things takes longer in the nature of things so why would I wait possibly 5 years, allowing my brain to "map" my pain and increase the length of time and difficulties healing???
Sometimes, to my own detriment, I can be very persuasive lol You know the old adage: Be careful what you ask/wish for? Well, I guess I made my point because he told me that it was really up to me, that when my quality of life became unbearable to me, such as it is, give him a call. I do not recall the date I called his office and told his nurse to go ahead and book a date, instead I think she booked me in to see him in person. I was a bit surprised to find he had done almost a complete turnaround about the urgency, particularly with regard to the increased percentage of  having serious phantom pain the longer my brain is allowed to experience pain for it to remember ;-( Also, as he had already made a referral to the U of A pain clinic, he asked if I could hold out until I had at least seen the doctors there. He told me that he agreed with me now about the narcotic pain killers and would not like to see me get hooked, at which point he stated: "and you WILL get hooked if you start them, Kismet." So, I agreed to wait and he agreed to get the ball rolling on his end for the amputation.
This brings us to current events. My back to back appointments with the pain doc and the psychiatrist were scheduled for May 25th,2011, nearly a 5 month wait. These were the 2 single most important appointments in my life to date because these are the doctors who could potentially sign my medical marijuana application. {Again, for those of you who do not know me, Marijuana has been my painkiller of choice in various forms, most recently via vaporizer (so I am not smoking - SMOKING IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH!) and via a tincture I make using Marijuana & grain alcohol - more on this later}
I missed those appointments the day before yesterday {shakes head} and I can only blame myself. My friends know from CrackBook {fond nickname for FaceBook} that it was a less than stellar day ;-D and culminated in my vascular surgeon's office calling me with a date: June 28th, 2011.

Author's Note: That is all for tonight ;-D Basically, I have decided to blog my experience on a daily basis {anshallah} {sp?} as I hope to go through this experience without general anesthetic and/or conventional painkillers. I believe in alternative medicine wholeheartedly and will do my best to be true to that for myself 1st and to help others second - Peace