Patricia Queen has type one diabetes, but that isn’t why she lost her leg below the knee last year. Nineteen years ago she ruptured a disk in her back that nearly severed her sciatic nerve, leaving her paralyzed below her left knee. Still, Pat was able to remain healthy and active, wearing an orthotic brace and flying all over the country for her employer, the United States Postal Service. It wasn’t until a trip to Las Vegas October 4, 2006, that things started to go terribly wrong. Suddenly, a bone stuck out the bottom of her foot. Pat couldn’t feel the pain, but she did see the blood and went immediately to the emergency room.
Pat was diagnosed with osteomyelitis in her left foot, which is a dangerous infection of the bone, and they treated her with antibiotics. Still, after returning to St. Louis, Ms. Queen’s temperature spiked and she ended up at Missouri Baptist Hospital being seen by vascular surgeon Dr. Ricardo Rao. He removed the dead tissue, but she failed to begin healing properly. So one day he came into her room and said, “I’m going to talk to you just like I would talk to my mother or my sister. You need to have an amputation. We can heal this, but it will take time, and it’s not an issue of when the infection will come back, but when.” Later, a plastic surgeon working with the hospital’s wound care center gave her an even graver assessment. Pat says she saw his face change from concern to horror before he said, “I just pushed a cue tip through a bone in your foot. There is no way we can ever heal this.”
Pat was diagnosed with osteomyelitis in her left foot, which is a dangerous infection of the bone, and they treated her with antibiotics. Still, after returning to St. Louis, Ms. Queen’s temperature spiked and she ended up at Missouri Baptist Hospital being seen by vascular surgeon Dr. Ricardo Rao. He removed the dead tissue, but she failed to begin healing properly. So one day he came into her room and said, “I’m going to talk to you just like I would talk to my mother or my sister. You need to have an amputation. We can heal this, but it will take time, and it’s not an issue of when the infection will come back, but when.” Later, a plastic surgeon working with the hospital’s wound care center gave her an even graver assessment. Pat says she saw his face change from concern to horror before he said, “I just pushed a cue tip through a bone in your foot. There is no way we can ever heal this.”
On November 3, 2006, Pat Queen lost her left leg below the knee. But her amputation site began to develop gangrene because of her diabetes, and on January 3, 2007, she had a second amputation, this time just two-and-a-half inches below her knee. With such a short residual limb, it was a challenge for Manny Rivera, her prosthetist with P&O Care, to create a prosthesis that would protect her tibia or shin bone. A short limb is a short lever and so requires more force to do the same amount of work, so when Pat told her therapists she wanted to walk out of the hospital unassisted, they said, “We’re going to have to work you’re butt off to do it.”
On February 22, 2007, Pat stood on both legs for the first time. After four weeks of therapy, she was able to walk on even ground without a cane or walker. Since leaving the hospital, Pat has gained even more strength and has been able to move into a new prosthetic socket that allows her to bend her knee more than at first. Nothing is slowing her down. She has traveled over 30,000 miles, crisscrossing the United States in her car from Maine to the Grand Canyon and many other destinations.Pat says the initial shock of amputation hit hard, and she definitely had to morn her loss. At 58 years old, she retired last June after 34 with the Postal Service. But it was the long healing process was the most difficult for Pat emotionally: “Getting used to not being able to do everything I wanted to do was the hardest,” she says. “Talking with other amputees online at [the social networking site] Less Than Four has helped more than anything else, and I love reading inMotion” a bi-monthly magazine just for amputees. Recently, Pat has even been able to talk on the phone and encourage some of Manny’s patients struggling with depression.
Pat’s strangest experience since becoming an amputee has been her phantom limb pain. “I hadn’t felt my foot for nineteen years,” she says, “but all of a sudden after the first amputation, I started feeling it itch or cramp. It was really weird, and the doctors couldn’t tell me why the feeling came back even through my leg and foot had been paralyzed.”
That pain has gone down some, but it’s still there a little. What Ms. Queen doesn’t have to deal with is pain from her prosthesis: “Manny’s work has just been amazing. Never ever have I had pain with that leg.” Besides having a prosthesis that fits well, Pat says managing her socks is most important. “I start the day with 6 socks and move up to 7 or more. I met another amputee who complained so much about his leg hurting, but he hadn’t been taught how to manage his socks.”
Pat has her health insurance through the Government Employee Health Association (GEHA), who covered her prosthesis and replacement socket. But Pat has been in touch with other amputees who have been denied coverage because of hidden caps in their group or private policies. So, Pat is supporting the efforts of the Missouri Coalition for People with Limb Loss and talking about the importance of prosthetic parity legislation in Missouri on her profile at http://www.lessthanfour.org/. Just search for Pat Queen.
Pat has her health insurance through the Government Employee Health Association (GEHA), who covered her prosthesis and replacement socket. But Pat has been in touch with other amputees who have been denied coverage because of hidden caps in their group or private policies. So, Pat is supporting the efforts of the Missouri Coalition for People with Limb Loss and talking about the importance of prosthetic parity legislation in Missouri on her profile at http://www.lessthanfour.org/. Just search for Pat Queen. 
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