My Life With Diabetes

On January 24^th of 2002 my left leg was amputated below the knee. I was advised that the only solution to get rid of my agony was amputating of my left foot. I was told that I lacked blood circulation around my toes. The operation took place from 11am to 3 pm. As a result of half Anastasia that I was given below my stomach, I felt dead around my legs while the rest of my body remained sensitive and alive. I heard the doctors talking and laughing while operating my foot. Moreover, I felt the cutting of my leg like sawing a piece of wood. My amputation shocked many of my friends and my students. My daughter was with me the whole day comforting me. She became devastated to see my amputated leg. She was in a state of denial and as a result of it she was not comfortable to see my amputated leg. I used to get blood transfusion after amputation. On the other hand a number of blood samples used to be taken from me every morning in those early times.

After two weeks of my amputation I started physiotherapy. I used to push a wheelchair to the physiotherapy centre every working day from 11-12 am in the morning and 2-3 pm in the afternoon. I could not explain enough about the kindly treatment and support that members of the physiotherapy staff provided me. Lesley, Caroline, and Michel were among others that deserved mentioning. On February 6, 2002. I went to Crystal Palace, Bowly Close Centre to cast my leg for the artificial one. On 13^th of February 2002 I received my new artificial leg. Mr. Tayler kept telling me to exercise walking with my artificial leg. I used to follow the doctors’ instructions and made good progress in walking exercise. After some time I managed to walk perfectly well with my left artificial leg. In order to walk I used two sticks to keep me in balance. Around the middle of March 2002 I was forced to stop my walking exercise because of the severe pain of my right foot.

I had a white mark on the top of one of my toes in my right foot for a while. I talked to my chiropodist several times about it but she could not help remove the white mark that grew on top of my toe. She was worried to remove it to avoid unnecessary infection that might happen by cutting that mark. As time went on that white mark turned to grow wider and bigger in size. My walking exercise increased pain at my right leg. Finally, I could not step my right leg on the ground at all. I had a sore between the first and the second toes. The pain I had to face during those times was so terrible. Mr. Tayler and his workmates used to check my blood flow level of my right leg down to my toes every day. The results were not encouraging rather went so bad from time to time. I faced untold pain and suffering due to the growing gangrene on top of one of my toes. I felt my own body and flesh stinking in spite of daily wash and medication. I could hardly move my leg for it became swollen around my foot. As the pain became more and more severe the amount of medication increased including one of the top painkillers like morphine. I had to take morphine every four hours other wise the pain would make me scream and bother other patients sleeping in the same room.

My first morphine prescription was to take 10mg during the morning and night times. As pain increased I used to seek more and more morphine tablets. My doctor prescribed that I should get 30mg of morphine. I used to scream and shout due to severe pain. Every four hours I used to get morphine tablet in order to calm down my pressing pain. As a result of excessive dosage my thinking capacity had been impaired for a while. As I was told later on I used to talk astray from the main topic while I was with my visitors. I used to forget things.   On top of that I was the one that injected my insulin twice in a day that left me in total danger. I had no idea whether I took the right dosage or not during those miserable times. I remember that during one of those days I walked to the television room that was next to my bedroom. I sat alone for a while and complained that people I expected for a meeting were late. In my mind that television room was a conference hall and people that were supposed to come were Ethiopians. Some one among the hospital workers brought my dinner interrupting my hallucination while I was waiting for a meeting in that room.

As I came to find out later on, my daughter, Shukinna was crying about my  change of behaviour. I was very skinny weighing only 62 kg loosing 22 kg. Having detected my mental disorder my daughter telephoned my nephew Tewodrose Leka to come to the hospital immediately. Tewodrose came to the hospital to visit me and was briefed about my change of behaviour, my forgetfulness and my astray from the topic. That happened around the third week of March 2002. Fortunately enough my nephew was a professional chemist and studied the kinds of my medication including their dosage. He found out that the morphine dosage that I was taking was overdosed. He found out that the excessive morphine dosage could bring about temporary thinking impairment.  He became very angry about the prescription ordered by my doctor. He contacted my doctor and talked with him to change the morphine dosage. As a result of that my morphine dosage was lowered down to 20 mg and then to 10mg. Since that change of my dosage I came to my real senses thanks to Tewodrose Leka.

On the 5^th of April 2002 the only leg that I had was amputated. The doctor in charge of my case came to discuss with me about amputating my right leg.