Hi! I'm David and I'm a 50 year old grandpa of 4 and dad to many. I love my life! It's been a rough couple of years though. Been dealing with Charcot foot for some 15 years from complications with diabetes before I knew I was one and had it under control. What happens with Charcot in a nutshell is that the foot bones break over and over causing pain and deformities.

About two years ago i broke the foot and ankle pretty bad and tried to maintain my work-life, dialysis and my personal life (what was left of it) after all the appointments, casts and treatments. Needless to say my relationships with friends and family have been strained because I'm always in pain and I seem to never catch a break.

In November of 2020 I was going through some tests for a kidney transplant (I'm A+ if anyone would like to donate a kidney by the way) and they found some conflicting results in my tests. One said everything was great and the other said that something was very wrong. Being a dialysis patient, we have struggles with phosphorus, potassium, calcium, etc. and after a heart cath at Thanksgiving we found calcified arties and the need for bypass surgery. I had to have a great Christmas with my family and the grandkids because I wasn't sure if there'd be another. Birthday and Christmas was the best in a long time. I realized what was most important and on to open heart surgery in January of 2021.

Made it through a quintuple bypass by the grace of God and some fantastic surgeons and physicians. Back on the mend and on the road to recovery I had my first mile of walking in at the 28 day mark from surgery. I continued to improve! Walking a mile and a half a day, then two... Riding a stationary bike 4-8 miles a day. Started doing better every day! In fact, the best I felt in a long time.

I received a new walking device to accommodate my Charcot foot and thought I was on easy street. Keeping up with the exercise regimen, back in the weight room, doing yard work and riding the motorcycle with my son and friends.

Boom! Then it happened... I got blister on my left ankle and it looked pretty angry. I sought out medical attention, but they really wasn't doing anything (or what I thought they should have been doing) for it and things began to decline quickly over the period of a month. Had a consult with one doctor and she said the best thing to do would to amputate below the knee (BKA). No-one wants to hear that, I mean I've been attached to it for 50 years and I's like to leave with all that I was born with.

Unhappy with the wound care place and the fact that they didn't treat me the last two times I went. Once they called to schedule my missed appointment as I sat in their lobby for nearly an hour and the second time in the same week, they left me in a room for an hour as everyone went to lunch and I walked out. I had enough!

I was seeking another wound care unit and before I found them I stepped in a hole and crunched my bad ankle pretty bad. When I got into the appointment they looked at my foot and immediately sent me to the ER for an MRI and started me on antibiotics. It was a couple days and I was being admitted into the hospital with some pretty serious infections in my bloodstream, my bone and a septic ankle joint because I destroyed the foot, ankle and leg bones.

Here I am now just a couple days later making the decision to move forward with the only thing that will allow me to sustain and get back to a quality of life worth living. I've decided that I could fight this infection for another two years, try and heal a foot that will never heal and still end up down the road somewhere having to remove the foot and part of my lower leg. The longer its prolonged the lesser chance I have of recovering. Why risk my life over a broken foot and an infection.

I'm going to be off of work about 3 months and going to need to pay for monthly expenses, day to day costs of fuel, food and supplies. I'll also need some medical equipment to make my living space accessible for handicap persons, a ramp to get in and out of my house as well as some medical expenses. If things were to go south I would like to relieve my family and friends the burden of my final expenses for cremation. Either way God has me in His ever loving arms forever.