Kery Singleton was tired of the pain, tired of the risk and tired of the surgeries.
“Take it off,” she told her doctors as she made official what she long believed to be an inevitability. On July 11, her long-injured foot was officially amputated.
The Destrehan woman makes a point to maintain a positive attitude in the face of any adversity that may come her way. Unfortunately, that endeavor has become more and more challenging as time has passed.
A serious injury Singleton suffered in 2001 led to numerous ankle surgeries and infections, the latest of the latter occurring in early July.
This led to her decision to opt for amputation. To say there is never a good time to make such a drastic adjustment in one’s day to day life is quite the understatement, but the Singletons were already dealing with considerable hardship. Kery had been unable to work regularly due to her disability, giving up a career in the education field. She was a teacher at Landry Middle School and served as PTA president and worked with the Head Start program in St. Charles Parish. To make matters worse, her husband Maurice lost his job with Shell during the company’s November layoffs. Maurice had spent 28 years with Shell before being let go.
Singleton injured her foot initially in 2001 when she fell and badly twisted her leg, to notable swelling in her ankle and knee. Singleton noted that after going to see a doctor, she received medication and was told to allow the leg to heal. But as days passed, she noticed her leg seemed to be getting worse, not better. After getting another evaluation, she received what ultimately became ominous news: she had been misdiagnosed. Her leg needed immediate attention and because it did not receive it, the weight bearing bone in her leg had died.
From 2001-06, she underwent six ankle surgeries, one of those a procedure in which a rod was inserted into her leg for stabilization. That surgery predated Hurricane Katrina by a month. After the Singletons returned from evacuation, Kery found the doctors she had been seeing were displaced. The rod in her leg broke during a procedure to remove it, causing even more trauma to her foot and leg. Other problems arose along the way.
In 2003, a year she underwent three of those ankle surgeries, she ended up needing to undergo triple-bypass surgery. After her surgery, a blood clot was discovered as she rested in ICU, and she suffered a heart attack. The surgeries and blood-thinners she had to take, she believes, led to medical complications.
By 2016, Singleton described having to walk on a “damaged, deformed foot” causing her constant pain. She was long told there was no way to completely fix her foot, and the only way to eliminate the pain would be amputation, but she resisted making that call.
By July, Singleton started feeling sick with a 104-degree fever. Again, the foot — which she said turned white, then purple during this infection — was the cause.
“I just said, ‘I’m done,’” Singleton recalled. “Take the foot. They told me, ‘No, no you don’t have to do this.’ But I was done. I’m risking my life to save a limb that simply isn’t worth saving.”
Tests later revealed gangrene had settled in her foot, further affirming her decision.
“It wasn’t going to get better,” she said. “When you hear gangrene that’s about the scariest thing ever. It could have turned out so much worse. (After the procedure), I honestly just felt this peace.”
Maurice, meanwhile, was let go from Shell, Singleton notes, just a month before he would have been fully vested. The silver lining, she said, is that he has been able to spend time at home with her since her procedure. But she also knows her family needs stable income. The Singletons have four children (two biological and two adopted children).
Friends, family and others have stepped up to help. Singleton’s daughter, Alivia, set up a GoFundMe page under the name “Help for Mom” (www.gofundme.com/2ds435xy). Friends and neighbors have brought dinners to their residence as she recovers, while another friend is planning a raffle to raise money to help cover some of her medical expenses.Singleton is grateful, but also admits she’s somewhat uncomfortable with such attention.
“I feel like I’m the one who sets up these things for others,” she said. “I don’t like to ask for help, and when I saw (Alivia) set up that page, I wasn’t very comfortable with any of it. I’m very, very appreciative, though.”Singleton said she plans to soon be fitted for a prosthetic foot, and she believes she’ll be better off for it.
“My grandson tells me I’m going to get a ‘robofoot,’” she said with a laugh. “It’ll be better than the foot I had – I know that.”
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