Sample Observations of Amputations

I was referred to some helpful health reference/self-diagnosis sites as in OMG! I knew it...I have that whatchamacallit degenerative brain disease after all for hypochondriacs by a dashing (ahem) doctor, and came across this:

(From the Bandolier: 'Evidence based thinking about healthcare"):

Average

"A measure for the central tendency of a sample of observations. The term average is most often used for the arithmetic mean, but sometimes also for the median. For instance, suppose the yearly income of five people is $50,000, $80,000, $100,000, $120,000, and $650,000. The arithmetic mean is the sum of these values divided by their number, that is, $200,000. The median is obtained by ranking the values (as above) and taking the one in the middle, that is, $100,000. When the distribution is asymmetric, as it is often with income, the mean and the median are not the same, and it can be the case that most people earn less than the mean.

Another example is with legs. Most people (99.9%) have two legs. But some have had amputations or accidents, so the average number of legs in the population is less than two. Therefore 99.9% of the population have more legs than average." (Should I be laughing here? Capt Calico Jack?)

And I got to thinking about a friend.

She was hit by a drunk driver, on her engagement day, as she was unloading some stuff by the Ulu Klang Highway, near Kampung Pasir. As she stood at the boot of her small Kia, with two others, she suddenly heard a loud screech, turned and saw this BMW coming straight at her, smashing her in between the two cars. A drunk. A drunk Iranian came out of the car, blubbering, asking for her forgiveness as she lay on road in shock, unable to move her crushed legs.

A drunk driver who had previously hurt someone else, we later found out, but was let off by the police...he is a rich young man. The rich can buy their freedom. They can also buy people off.

Well, this time he couldn't buy my friend new legs. She lost one, and the other is shattered, and she faces a long route to rehabilitation and recovery. But she is a strong woman. With a loving and accepting fiancee, and supportive friends and family, she will make it.

When I visited her at the hospital, the doctors were fighting to save her legs, and I saw, how the crushed, bleeding and putrefying more seriously injured one was making her so ill. They didn't have a choice. They finally had to cut it off to save her life.

Recovery is a long, winding and challenging road ahead for her. And then you have the "phantom limb pain".

In layman's term:

From the Wikipedia: The term “phantom limb” was first coined by American neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell in 1871 (Halligan, 2002). Mitchell described that “thousands of spirit limbs were haunting as many good soldiers, every now and then tormenting them” (Bittar et al, 2005). However, in 1551, French military surgeon Ambroise Paré recorded the first documentation of phantom limb pain when he reported that, “For the patients, long after the amputation is made, say that they still feel pain in the amputated part” (Bittar et al, 2005).

It says here that:

"If phantom limb sensations are normal then so too, alas, is phantom limb pain. This occurs in a majority of those who lose their limbs. (1) In fact, limbs do not need to be lost; it also occurs in conditions in which the brain is disconnected from the body, such as peripheral nerve injuries and after spinal cord injury, when an area becomes insentient (and usually paralysed).

The pain is described in various ways: burning, aching, 'as if the hand is being crushed in a vice,' etc. Such words, however, cannot fully encompass the experience of living with such a pain. In those with chronic pain after spinal cord injury it is frequently the pain rather than the paralysis that interferes with work and social life. One woman has said that paralysis does not stop life, but pain may. "

I hope my friend regains her life back soon and marries her fiancee like they planned before this horrible accident.

One cannot help though but draw an analogy from all this... to marriage and divorce.

Gangrene and amputations.

The chronic pain of a missing part of you.