Parenting – Family Ties

Parenting:
Family Ties
by Zahara Meghani

Most parents with teenage children on the verge of adulthood begin preparing themselves for an empty nest – but not Barbara Wilkinson. A single parent and below knee amputee, Wilkinson believes that her rural house in Spokane, Washington, will always be home to her three children. “Because my children and I have been through so much together, we will always be very close, emotionally and physically,” Wilkinson told inMotion.

Wilkinson’s confidence in the ties that bind her family together is not without merit. Seventeen-year-old Trampas, 16-year-old Chantz and 13-year-old Josi are well aware of all that their mother has endured for their sake. Since John Wilkinson’s death in a motorcycle accident 13 years ago, Barbara Wilkinson has been raising the children by herself. “I was pregnant with Josi when my husband was killed,” she explains. “John helped a lot when Trampas and Chantz were newborns. In fact, until Trampas and Chantz could walk, John was the one who would carry them around. I didn’t know how I would care for the new baby without him.”

Her concerns were legitimate. For Josi’s sake, she had to make compromises in how she negotiated her physical limitations. “As a toddler, Josi was afraid of my wheelchair, so I stopped using it around her. She also didn’t like my crutches because I couldn’t carry her when I was using them.” During those years, Wilkinson wore an artificial leg most of the time. Because of the toddler, Wilkinson also switched artificial limbs. “Josi would try to stand up holding on to my prosthesis but she would invariably bump her head on its hard fiberglass surface. So I got a endoskeletal prosthesis with a cushioned outer surface that wouldn’t hurt her even if she bumped her head on it.”

Acquiring a prosthesis that fit well was never easy for Wilkinson because of the way her limb had been amputated. “Trying to save as much of my leg as possible, the surgeon amputated one-inch below my knee. It’s very hard to find a prosthesis that fits well, given the nature of my stump. But I did what I had to do for Josi’s sake.”

As Wilkinson struggled to attend to the physical and emotional needs of her three children, she also had to fight to make ends meet. “For the past 13 years, I have raised three children on John’s social security, with public assistance for our medical expenses. It has been very hard on all of us; the children have had to go without many things. What has sustained us is having each other for support.”

Wilkinson and her children, in part, attribute their strong family ties to her amputation, which resulted from a botched orthopedic procedure. “I had gone to the hospital for corrective surgery on my right knock-knee; amputation wasn’t even a remote possibility.” Although the operation went well, complications ensued because the leg cast was misapplied. In the days after the surgery, the attending physician treated Wilkinson’s claims that something was wrong with her leg by prescribing an increased dosage of pain medication. By the time the cast was removed, Wilkinson’s leg was infected with gangrene.

In the month-long hospital stay caused by the botched orthopedic procedure and resulting amputation, Wilkinson became suicidal. “I wouldn’t look at my amputated leg, and I stopped eating. The nurse told me that I wouldn’t be released until I began eating again and could bear to look at my stump.” What finally enabled Wilkinson to accept her plight was the epiphany that her leg had been amputated for a higher purpose.

“I couldn’t let myself believe that my amputation was the result of a chance event or stupidity or carelessness on someone’s part. That would have trivialized what had happened to me. I thought if I could only talk to other people who were amputees, I might be able to make sense of the amputation.”

Desperate for information about life as an amputee, Wilkinson turned to the hospital for referrals. Citing the malpractice suit filed by Wilkinson’s family, the hospital rejected her pleas for contact with other amputee patients. “I told my mother I was going to go crazy unless I talked to someone who could understand what I was feeling. My mother contacted a prosthetist in Spokane, who put me in touch a woman who was also a lower limb amputee. Talking to her saved my sanity,” Wilkinson remarked. Still, while she benefited greatly from meeting this woman, Wilkinson contends that a support group would have been much more beneficial.

Wilkinson’s attempts to start a support group also failed because local hospitals would not refer their amputee patients to her. “The fact that I sued my orthopedic surgeon’s practice and the hospital for malpractice made them wary of associating with me. In fact, I had to go all the way to California to find a doctor who would testify in court that I had been a victim of medical malpractice.” Because her effort to connect with other amputees was thwarted, in the late 1970s, Wilkinson gave up on the idea of forming a support group.

In 1998, Wilkinson’s wish for an amputee support group finally came true with the formation of the Spokane-based “Support Group for People with Amputation.” The group has become an integral part of Wilkinson’s support system. “I only wish it had come about sooner; it has helped alleviate my sense of isolation as an amputee parent.”

Recently, Wilkinson completed a Peer Visitor Training Program offered by her support group in collaboration with the Amputee Coalition of America. “I really wanted to be an amputee peer visitor because I know, by omission, the value of the support and information a peer visitor can provide to a new amputee and his or her family.”

Becoming a trained peer visitor is part of Wilkinson’s larger goal to redefine herself. “Now that my kids are older, I feel I can give some part of myself to amputee advocacy,” she says. Wilkinson is not new to advocacy; for a number of years she has given talks at her children’s school about life with a physical disability. Her motivation for amputee advocacy is clear-cut. “I have finally realized that sometimes things happen to us for reasons we don’t understand – but the fact is that horrible things do happen, and it’s what we do with it that’s important. Some good can come out of it after all, and that is what I want to share with other people as an amputee advocate.”

If Wilkinson brings to advocacy the kind of energy and devotion that she expended in her role as a single mother with a disability, then, no doubt, amputees will benefit a great deal from having her as a member of their community.

This article has been reproduced with permission from the Amputee Coalition of America