A new limb for life

Alicia Fitzpatrick was thrilled that her dad was getting his leg amputated. That may sound strange to outsiders. But to this 15-year-old, amputation meant hope. Her dad's left leg had been an issue her whole life. It was the reason he was in the hospital every few months. The reason he couldn't walk comfortably or ski or bowl. The reason she almost lost her father when she was a baby.

Over 13 years Casey Fitzpatrick underwent multiple surgeries, skin grafts and battled constant pain from an infection of necrotizing fascitis, a flesh-eating bacteria he believes he contracted at his bachelor's party. Ten days after his wedding, he was in an intensive care unit with a 10 percent chance of living.

Although doctors tried for years to save his limb, two years ago they decided to amputate.

"I always knew my dad with a messed-up leg," Alicia said. "It was kind of like I was getting my dad for the first time because he could do as much as I could do."

Fitzpatrick's story has been repeated time and time again throughout the United States. There are about 1.7 million amputees in the country, according to the National Limb Loss Information Center.

Thanks to major advances in prosthetic technology, much of it driven by military research, many amputees who would have remained in a wheelchair a decade or two earlier are walking, jumping, running, skiing.

Fitzpatrick was eager to join the ranks of the more active amputees. But before he could get there, he would face a series of obstacles - one of them being the cost.

A below-the-knee prosthesis costs about $12,000, says Craig Gavras, executive director and co-founder of the Limbs for Life Foundation. Each year Limbs for Life fully funds prostheses for about 300 people.

Fitzpatrick is one of the lucky ones the foundation funded. He wouldn't have been able to afford a leg.

But concerns about coping without a leg went beyond money troubles. He had to wrap his mind around the idea of living with a fake leg.

"It was exciting because in my mind I was thinking this is the beginning of me walking," Fitzpatrick said. "But then it was scary because I was depending on something that was not there in my mind."

Although he relearned to walk quickly, his first prosthetic leg was awkward, he said. He was fitted with a new one with a different suspension, funded by the Friends of Man, a Littleton-based charity, and the Barr Foundation Amputee Assistance Fund, a national nonprofit.

The new leg was easier to move in, and most importantly, it was a leg that got him back on the bowling lanes. Fitzpatrick is training to compete in local and state tournaments this year and hopes to bowl at nationals next summer. He's able to walk comfortably again, golf with less pain, and recently started a full-time job driving a taxi. Since the infection began, he's been in and out of employment.

Adjusting to the label of amputee took time, he admits. Strangers ask him about what happened; many think he is a war vet. His wife, Audra, says sometimes they hear people make comments or see onlookers gawking.

To his family, however, what he looks like doesn't matter.

"As long as he's gonna live - that's all I care about," his wife says. "He's still the man I want to spend the rest of my life with."