I'm Cheryl Henderlight Benson.

I'm trying to help a friend, Vicki Limbaugh, who had a tragic injury that has required a lot of surgeries. I have known her since we were in Jr. High. We've been friends a long time. I recently experienced some difficult times, and GoFundMe helped my family with medical bills. I have been so appreciative of all who helped me. I pray that Vicki gets some help. She is out of work for a while with a long recovery ahead. This is her story:

On June 26th, I was working and was on a ladder just 4ft up. I fell, and the way I landed was on my knee with my leg behind my back. I was taken by ambulance to one hospital and was told my injury was too severe and that I would need to be taken to UT. At this point, I only knew I had just broken my leg. I didn’t have a clue that it was going to be as bad as it ended up being. When I arrived at UT hospital, I met my surgeon, and all he kept saying was this is a very bad injury. I still did not know how bad until I woke up from my first surgery and was told that I had compartment syndrome, which I had never heard of before, and apparently, people lose their limbs from this kind of injury. I ended up staying in the hospital for 34 days and had four surgeries, so I had one surgery each week that I was in the hospital. The first three were for the compartment syndrome surgery to open up my leg and drain all of the bad stuff out, put drain tubes in my leg, and left it open for three weeks. The fourth surgery was to close that wound up and repair the bones that I had broken in the front of my leg and knee. I ended up with 14 screws and plates in my leg, which will never come out. It wasn’t until that last surgery when I was talking to my doctor that I realized I almost really lost my leg and that I possibly could still lose my leg at that time. I was not completely out of the woods yet. It was a very scary time for me, and I asked the doctor, will I ever walk again? He told me with a lot of hard work and time, you will walk again, but you will never walk the same. At first, I was really shocked to hear that, but I quickly realized I still had my leg, so I had so much to be grateful for. There aren’t too many people that come out of this injury without having some part of a limb taken off, so I consider myself very blessed. I am now at home. I have 24-hour care that comes to my house and a physical therapist that comes twice a week to my house. I am really working hard to push through all the pain and get back on both feet. The doctor says I won’t walk till well after Christmas, so I still have some time to go. Right now, I’m just relying on my faith to get me through these tough times. As active as a person I have always been, I guess the hardest part is lying in bed most of the day and having someone else having to cook and clean and do all of the things I’m used to doing myself. Please pray for Vicki at this time.