'I tried to tear it off with my hands': Woman's twisted ankle leads to agonising injury
A mum who suffered for years and eventually had her leg amputated after rolling her ankle during a hike on a glacier is planning to go back to the site of her horrendous injury.
Anita Carden, from Byron Bay, was hiking Tasman Glacier in New Zealand in 2015 with her husband when she took a tumble, twisting her left ankle.
The 52-year-old told Yahoo News Australia the injury didn’t worry her at the time because it didn’t hurt, but when she awoke the next morning her foot was swollen and black and yellow in colouring.
After months of doctor’s tests and scans, Ms Carden was diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), a malfunction of the nervous system that can occur in people’s arms, hands, legs and feet after an injury like a fracture.
Three and a half years of excruciating pain led her to beg the doctors to remove the lower part of her left leg.
“I woke up and saw it was gone and I was absolutely overjoyed. The relief was overwhelming,” she said.
Now, almost five years to the day since the accident, Ms Carden and her husband are planning to return to the Tasman Glacier. It will be her first hike since the incident.
“I want to be able to say you didn’t beat me. I want to say I won, CRPS is not going to take my life away,” she said.
‘I’d try and tear it off with my hands’
Ms Carden underwent numerous examinations, blood tests and scans before she was diagnosed with CRPS 18 months after she injured her ankle.
By this point, the 52-year-old said the bruising and swelling had spread to above her knee.
“It was purple and yellow, splotchy, changed in colour, temperature and texture - it was like a chameleon,” she told Yahoo News Australia.
In 2017, Ms Carden visited a pain clinic on and off for six months, eventually having an anaesthetic injected into the sympathetic nerve next to her spine and undergoing a nerve block.
Nothing worked, and by June 2018 the pain had become unbearable, prompting her to ask to have the leg removed.
“By this point my leg was dead. It was bleeding Constantine and was a dead weight attached to me.
“My whole life had come to a standstill. I was wheelchair bound.
“Something happens in the brain and you end up hating the limb. I would wake up in the middle of the night trying to tear it off with my hands.
“If someone had said ‘you could die today peacefully’, I would’ve taken it,” she said.
‘I have my life back’
The self-proclaimed active mum said having her leg amputated has completely changed her life for the better.
“I’m now mobile again and my pain is gone. I’m very active and I wont let this beat me. I walk my dog on the beach every day,” she said.
Ms Carden has also started an Instagram where she shares her struggles with CRPS and her progress with the prosthetic leg.
She said she is hoping to bring awareness to the relatively unknown condition, which is also called the suicide disease for the toll it can take on the mental health of those suffering.
“I had to fight to get my leg amputated, but I didn’t give up and it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done. I am now an advocate for amputation.
“I will continue to be a voice for this disease and raise awareness, especially among the medical community, that taking a CRPS limb can give a person their life back.”
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