Amputation

Infection causes gangrene.

Gangrene causes amputation.

Amputation causes death.

When somebody has an amputation related to a diabetic foot, their mortality drops to five years from their first amputation.

If they have kidney disease related to that, two years.

It is an amputation.

It may sometimes be necessary.

Amputation saves lives, but it is never casual.

It is never scrolling.

It is surgery, and both you and the body bleed.

We've taken on vaccines as a staple of what innovative medicine and science has been in this country and holding on to the importance of vaccinations and pushing back on notions that vaccinations somehow can be beyond detrimental if properly done.

And environmental justice issues like death in custody and violence and limb salvage amongst African-American men and women, we find that Amputation, diabetic limb amputation or limb amputation in general is higher within African-American communities.

And we know that there's a higher mortality rate surrounding below the knee or above the knee amputations.

And so we've taken that on as a justice issue.

Ugly freckles, varicose veins? Let's cut it off.

Amputation is the last thing that you would do because you wanna keep the body intact.

It's the same way that Jesus says that's how we think about marriage, the two.

It's not a contract.

But when he was at university, doctors discovered that he had bone cancer in his right leg.

The leg had to be amputated, 截肢, and he was given an artificial leg, 一肢.

Back then, cancer research, 研究, didn't get much money.

So Terry had an idea.

Gangrene would set in, and limbs would blacken and die while still attached.

Amputation was sometimes attempted, but without anesthesia or antibiotics, it usually meant infection and death anyway.

The people of Dark Age Britain lived surrounded by death constantly.

You accepted that a significant portion of your children wouldn't survive to adulthood, that a wife or husband might suddenly be gone, that you yourself could be healthy one day and dead a week later.

Whatever.

Amputation, whatever.

Yeah.

Um, but, uh, savvy women over 40 represent a huge portion of the society as well.

So amputation is a tool, but it should never become a substitute for you using your brain and figuring out if there is another route, right? This can be a difficult conversation for patients in saying, "Oh, yes, I do believe an amputation would be the best life-saving route for you," right? The patient has a non-viable limb.

There's uncontrolled infection, extensive destruction, and a limb that cannot be preserved safely and functionally.

Amputation might be the most appropriate treatment, right? But there are many situations still in which delaying it indicated can...

Delaying an amputation.

If it's life-threatening and limb-threatening, you might have to do it.