Former Cancer Patient Refuses to Let Above-the-Hip Amputation Slow Her Down

It will take more than bone cancer and an amputation above the left hip to keep Mary Witt in the valley of despair. She is too busy making her way up to the mountaintop.

When her aluminum crutches failed her as she hiked up 14,265-foot Quandary Peak, she cast them aside.

“There was lightning all around, and I didn’t want to light up the world, either,” she said.

She used her hands to hop from boulder to boulder, scooting on her bottom part of the way.

For years, Witt, 37, said she “wouldn’t take the garbage out without wearing the leg because I didn’t want people to see me and feel sorry for me.”

Dr. Paul Jacobs of Milwaukee calls her “the perfect patient. It was more of a job slowing her down than pushing her to do things.”

Nearly 17 years ago, a tumor too large to remove was detected in Witt’s left leg.

“We had to take the leg, half the pelvis, about the biggest resection that can be done. At the time of the operation, survival was unlikely,” Jacobs said. The procedure was called a “hemi-pelvectomy level amputation.” There is rarely enough of a base left for a prosthesis.

“We talked about the fact that she would be using crutches, but it was better than dying,” Jacobs said.

It wasn’t all rosy. Her husband left her. “He didn’t want me, so I wondered, will anybody?” she said.

Witt has remarried and now has two boys.

“The fact that I could have kids was huge for me. My two boys made me as normal as I have been in 15 years,” she said.

Delivering Ben, now 2 1/2, and David, now 9 months, wasn’t difficult, she said, but “it was kind of annoying that I had to do without my leg for 7 1/2 months.” The socket of the prosthesis covers her entire body up to her lower ribs, and as the baby grew, her torso became too big for the socket.

She goes through $24,000 artificial legs like other people go through shoes.

Robert Brooks, a prosthetist-orthotist with the Prosthetic Center of Excellence in Las Vegas, says “a fair number of HP prosthetics have been fitted, but very few patients wear them because of the energy involved. Most of us will see one or two such patients in a lifetime.”

Witt has consulted with Brooks on the fittings of other patients.

“I think she is a wonderful individual to work with. She has a great attitude, is very physically fit and is a real inspiration to other amputees,” Brooks said.

Mary Novotny, past president of the American Coalition of Amputees, has an artificial leg similar to Witt’s. “I think that Mary [Witt] has been a tremendous role model, personally and professionally. Not only to help other amputees see the possibilities of what can be, but as an active physical therapist,” Novotny said.

A nurse, Novotny said Witt’s successful pregnancies also have helped others. “She even brought her [first] baby to a meeting to show what can be done. Most people like Mary and myself weren’t given much hope. You can not only live through it but have a meaningful life.”

Witt works as a physical therapist for the Vail Valley Home Health agency, often with patients suffering from mortal diseases or spinal injuries.

Nurse Linda Foti says Witt “brings a special gift. I saw it recently with a hospice patient. She just kind of took him out of that slump. She used her disability to point out to him there are obstacles to overcome. Even though he is going to die, he still had hope.

“With another patient in a wheelchair, she made such leaps and bounds. He has been in a wheelchair for 20 years, but now he has a new look on life.”

When Witt lived in Milwaukee, Jacobs invited her to meet “patients with amputations who were feeling blue to cheer them up.”

Her experience, she readily agrees, “gives me a different attitude. I have a connection with a quadriplegic I know nobody else could have. I cry with them.”

In her spare time, she teaches children with cancer how to ski. As she does when mountain climbing, she leaves her leg at the bottom of the hill. Because it reaches all the way from the hip and includes three joints, it weighs 12 pounds.

Dr. Richard Hawkins of the Steadman-Hawkins Sports Clinic in Vail says amputations “above the knee are more challenging and above the hip even more challenging.” Hawkins, physician for the U.S. Disabled Ski Team, added, “Even the energy requirement of walking is like three or four times more than for a person without the disability.”

Witt estimates her prosthesis requires about twice as much energy as an ordinary prosthesis.

Jacobs is still in awe of her for being able to get through a physical therapy program “because of the physical stress.”

Energy is something she has never lacked. In high school in Wisconsin she was a cheerleader, and she competed in volleyball and track.

Now, in addition to skiing, she snowshoes, using her prosthesis and ski poles, and rides a hand-operated bike.