She remained in pain for 7 years due to a chronic syndrome. He got his life back by cutting one leg

You must have said it jokingly: Some part of your body was hurting so much that you wanted you to cut it.

Kathy Well did the same.

The woman of Prince Edward Island had to spend seven years in pain after a “painful pain” after a minor injury to the leg. Sometimes, she assumed pain as 25 on a scale of one to 10.

During an interview with CBC News at his home in Morel, he said, “This progressively worse and worse and worse. The level of pain was increasing.” “I was taking more medicines, more pain pills, which I definitely didn’t want to do, but if I wanted to work on a daily basis I had to do so.”

The pain was burnt. It stabbed. It was sometimes so bad that when she asked for help from the medical staff, she could not even speak. And there was no permanent relief from any drug, nerve obstruction or manipulation tried by doctors.

So when a doctor eventually told him that he had 70 percent likely to end the pain due to cutting his right leg, he took it seriously.

Her husband, Tom Wel said, “Many times, during the flare, she used to say to me,” Just cut it, just go and bring the saws and cut it, “because it was very bad.”

“Like, the pain was unbearable. No relaxed at all.”

‘Nothing broken’

Kathy Well was suffering from complex regional pain syndrome or CRPS. It is an invisible inflammatory condition, usually affecting an organ and usually occurs after injury, stroke or heart attack. Patients experience stiffness in joints, swelling, muscle cramps and other symptoms related to nerves and communication system.

Mandy Fraser, a physicist and counseling physician registered on PEI, said, “This is a unique diagnosis, because there is not a single test for medical professionals to identify the situation.”

“So this is a challenging for that reason, because this diagnosis requires collecting many things as information.”

For Well, it took years to get a diagnosis, when the fire extinguisher fell from the inner wall of a van and went on its right ankle when she was taking care of children with special needs. The date was 25 September 2018.

He said, “At that time I didn’t really think much about it – I was not going to go to the hospital either.”

But she stopped at her husband’s workplace in Donagagh and took her to an emergency room.

He said, “I have many X-rays that day and nothing is broken.” “He just went home and asked him to rest because he had swelling and injury and … there was a lot of pain at that time.”

The pain remained, and became worse, so she kept looking for the answer. The MRI eventually revealed that a tendon in his ankle had exploded, so her surgery was to be done to fix it.

He said, “The entire process took three years.”

He continued to work as an educational assistant for some time “Because I loved my work with these children.” But by the time she had an MRI, she was closed due to the Kovid-19 epidemic, but due to repeated pain she came to a permanent medical disability, causing her completely ruined.

Tom Wel said, “Initially there was pain.” “And you know, I have a lot of injuries. I know that they usually go away after a few weeks and things are good. But when they found a little wound in the tendon, we had full hope that it was going to end.”

Kathy Well was desperate to return to her general version.

He said, “I was a very active person. I used to go to the gym for five days a week … I just like to exercise and I also like to walk and run.” “So there were two things that I like to do, they were snatched away from me very slowly.”

Fraser said, losing physical ability often has psychological effects.

Fraser said, “This leads them to a sense of helplessness and despair, which you know, takes them in a depressed and low mood.” “You know that you start worrying about their children, their future, their employment.”

Furious suddenly started

The family’s expectations from tendon surgery were high. But Well’s doctor cautioned him that “the possibility of developing CRPS from this surgery is less than one percent,” he said.

Tom Wel said, the official diagnosis of complex regional pain syndrome took place after second surgery to deal with continuous pain.

There have been lots of testing of remedies … some of them, unfortunately, made it worse, and this bus – everything moved downwards.– Tom Well

He said, “It has been just a roller coaster since then.” “There have been lots of treatment tests. It started with ketamine therapy. It went to spinal stimulating transplant, beer treatment … there were many sympathetic nerve blocks and other such things that were attempted but could never make it better.

“Some of them made it worse, unfortunately, and this is just a spiral at the bottom.”

Kathy Wel said that physical pain had increased by the fact that many people could not understand how a minor injury could really cause so much sorrow, which they said “very, very rigid on my head”.

Suddenly the situation can flare up. Her husband remembers that when someone attacked during a service, she had to ask for help from another man to help him take him out of the church. Well herself remembers that she could not talk about her pain once during the hospital tour.

The heating pad was a small comfort, as well as spending time with his grandson, who is now 18 months old, and joined with his twins in Ottawa. And she credits this to the collaborative friends and her “very, very careful doctors team”.

He took pain medicines, but some of them had no effect during the worst outbreak. The powerful medicine was the only thing that seemed to work at all. She was reluctant to take it, but she had no option left due to pain. After all, when the disease erupted, he needed two doses.

“Another thing about CRPS, it is also known as suicide disease because there is no cure for it. For many days I thought, ‘Oh God, what am I going to do and how will I go through these days? And what is going to happen to me in the coming years?’

“Tommy used to come home for several days and I used to cry and he used to say, ‘Well, good, what is wrong?’ And I said, ‘I can’t do this. And he said, “Yes, you can do this, you can go a little further.”

“Surely, without their support – I wouldn’t be here without him.”

‘There is another thing that we can do …’

Fraser, who has worked in physiotherapy for more than two decades, stated that CRPS is particularly disastrous because, unlike the events such as delivery, there is no forecasted closing point. Lack of psychological certainty increases sorrow.

He said that stress and mental health conflicts can also increase pain sensitivity.

He said, “I have customers who had very serious symptoms, due to which things like limb-disruption happened.”

Then the day came when “A-Shabd” was mentioned by Dr. Kai Waden, the orthopedic surgeon of Kathy Well.

“I was saying, you know, ‘I am still in pain,’ and … he was ready to leave and his hand was at the door and he said, ‘You know, there is another thing that we can do.’ And I was so, ‘Actually, what is that?’ And he said, ‘We can bite.’ And I thought: ‘Oh God. “

But the idea gained momentum.

A surgeon who trained Waden, Dr. Mark Glazbrook examined Well in Halifax in December 2024 and said he would be an ideal candidate for dissection below the knee. Given that this process was about 70 percent likely to end the pain, he advised him to go home and hold a family meeting on Christmas.

“And the children say, ‘Mother, you want your life back. You have to come back what you were, what you used to do.’ And Tommy also had the same mindset: ‘We need to do something here.’ ‘

That “something” finally took place on 25 August. And the pain went away.

“It’s great,” Tom Wel said. “Even in the ICU, I saw, like, on the second or third day, just a glow in her eyes and her face. It was completely different.”

Kathy Wel said, “It feels as if I am walking in the world, that I can actually come back and do these things that I loved to do and what I could not do.” “Now I can do this, and I am getting my life back.”

She is working hard on physio, and has become a walker from electric wheelchair, while her foot is sufficiently cured for an artificial limb.

Her husband said, “She is surprising everyone here, which some people call determination, which I call stubbornness.” “This is just amazing what she can do.”

Don’t give up. There is a doctor who will trust you and also a pain specialist who will help you.– Kathy Well

“I just believed,” he said. “We are very strong about our faith. And I believe in the power of prayer and I believe that this has given me success in it.”

A month after his surgery, he wrote a Facebook post on the seventh anniversary of that simple accident with firefighting device.

“Now I have a month since the anguctomy, and the pain is overcome!” It reads partially. “Thank God! I have not even had any phantom pain. There is still some pain in my left leg and hands, but there is nothing compared to my right leg. I am back to the gym, I am making strength to prepare my artificial foot in a few weeks.”

Tom Well is also feeling quite good these days.

“We have commented to people – even recently – they see it and say, ‘Pain is no longer on your face.’ Like, she always kept that pain on her face, even though she was smiling, you could still see it. “

Kathy Well has to say something to those who have gone through similar experiences and think that they can also be a disease that Tom calls Tom “tragic illness” that has disappointed them.

“Don’t give up,” he said. “There is a doctor who will trust you and a pain specialist who will help you …

“Stay firm, and trust.”