logo
Woman reveals what life is really like after having the rarest amputation in the world

Woman reveals what life is really like after having the rarest amputation in the world

Daily Mail​11-07-2025
After experiencing pain in her leg, Courtney Echerd never would have guessed she'd lose her entire limb after undergoing one of the rarest amputations in the world in order to save her life.
Courtney had been dealing with 18 months of intense pain when she finally received a diagnosis for pelvic osteosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer. in September last year at age 29.
As per the National Library of Medicine, treatment usually includes chemotherapy and wide surgical resection of the tumor.
But for Courtney, a hemipelvectomy amputation, which is when part of the pelvis and the entire leg is removed, was her best option.
She said: 'When the possibility [of an amputation] was first introduced by a surgeon in Dallas, she made it seem like my life was over.'
The patient admitted that she was worried she would be bedridden for the rest of her life, and was initially resistant to the idea.
Courtney continued: 'I saw it as black and white, I either go back to the life I was living with both legs or... I wouldn't even let my imagination go there.
'I threw up, asked two of my best friends to come over with their kids and dogs, and just kind of went in and out of sleep.'
Courtney eventually underwent the surgery and has since shared parts of her recovery journey on TikTok, which have gone viral on the platform.
She said: '[Hemipelvectomys] account for less than 0.05 percent of all lower limb amputations.
'I will one day be independent.
'I know [three to four] women who have had the same or similar surgery that live totally independently. They have children, they are superstars and I will one day be there - it just all depends on my pain.'
Courtney, who works in media and has been Los Angeles based for the past seven years, can thankfully still work, and says that getting back to LA is a big motivator for recovering.
She added she is no longer receiving treatment for bone cancer, but still experiences some of the chemotherapy side effects - despite not having received treatment for six months.
In a video posted in October last year, Courtney detailed why she hasn't received a prosthetic leg yet - explaining that she has no hip joint for the fake limb to attach to.
She said: 'The more joints you have the easier it is for you to use a prosthetic.
'Most people that have this amputation don't even use a prosthetic.'
The freelance journalist said that with more common amputations, the fake limbs which are inserted at a joint allow the user to move around in a similar way to how they did before.
However, she would have to learn to maneuver herself differently, explaining 'it will take using my hip force to swing that leg around, take a step, and swing again to walk.'
Courtney said this was due to a number of reasons, including that 'they're very expensive,' 'very complicated,' and they 'use a ton of energy.'
Courtney added: 'They're also really hot and heavy.'
Unlike other fake limbs, the type that Courtney will need to use is a leg which is joined by her wearing a form of plastic shorts, with a prosthetic attached to one side.
She said: 'It will wrap around my waist and then connect from the very, very, very small amount of leg that I have left.'
According to Medical Center Orthotics and Prosthetics, a hemipelvectomy is one of the rarest types of lower-extremity, above-knee amputations.
The sire reads: 'Hemipelvectomy surgery procedures involve a removal or re-sectioning of some part of the patient's pelvis (sometimes as much as half of it).
'This procedure is typically carried out for the treatment or elimination of the most dangerous conditions and diseases, the most prominent being localized tumors or cancers that have spread to the pelvis and have not been responsive to other forms of treatment such as radiation therapy or chemotherapy.'
Courtney now lives with her parents as she continues to recover from her surgery and adjust to her new way of life.
She said since having her leg removed, she has connected with other people who have dealt with the same amputation which has made her more optimistic about the future.
Courtney added: 'They have been a great source of hope, especially in the early days when I didn't know how I would ever cook dinner or travel or feel like myself again.
'There's a Facebook group of about 200 of us worldwide and it's so nice to pop in to ask questions like "What does everyone do in terms of luggage at the airport?" or "Who is the best prosthetist in America?"'
She added these questions can't just be searched online because information is so limited.
Courtney continued: 'We really only have each other.
'They are the people who have made me believe that I can be a parent and world traveler and live a happy life.'
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Kenneth Calman obituary: former chief medical officer for Scotland
Kenneth Calman obituary: former chief medical officer for Scotland

Times

time17 minutes ago

  • Times

Kenneth Calman obituary: former chief medical officer for Scotland

In 1977 Kenneth Calman installed a table-tennis table at his office in the Kelvinside area of Glasgow, hoping that it would encourage more talking among his staff. 'It was vital that we met in a semi-informal manner just so we could talk, communicate about what we are doing,' he told the Daily Record. They were discussing cancer and Calman was leading a 25-strong team undertaking research into the disease. At the time, 60 per cent of patients were dying within a month of diagnosis. 'That one statistic was a challenge to everything I wanted the new department of oncology to be,' he wrote in his memoir, It Started in a Cupboard (2019). Calman pioneered a holistic approach to cancer treatment in Scotland, pointing out that patients' needs were not only physical but also encompassed the social, emotional and spiritual. 'Healing can be a much broader concept,' he told The Herald. These thoughts led him to start Cancer Support Scotland, inviting patients into his home to hear what was most important to them during their illness. 'What this allowed me to do was to understand cancer in a way I hadn't understood before. Not in the kind of treatment, or the research, but about the people, patients, families and what they could cope with,' he said. He described how the drug Cisplatin induced vomiting in every patient whenever they took it, so much so that some would be sick merely at the sight of him. 'You get used to it,' he noted drily. He also introduced the Golden Pisspot award, a gold-painted chamber pot awarded to the doctor whose research work most disrupted clinical care. He was the final recipient. Calman's public service extended beyond tackling cancer. He was chief medical officer for Scotland at the time when Edinburgh had a reputation as 'Europe's Aids capital'; held the same position in England during the BSE crisis; and was vice-chancellor of the University of Durham, hitting a £175 million fundraising target for the university's 175th anniversary in 2007. Returning to Scotland he was appointed chairman of the Calman Commission, given the task of examining ways to make devolution work better. The commission's report, Serving Scotland Better, was delivered in June 2009 with input from the three main unionist parties but not the SNP. It formed the basis of the Scotland Act 2012 and included proposals for devolving election administration, drink-driving limits and tax-raising powers to Holyrood. • The Calman Commission: the main recommendations Although the commission might have seemed distant from his medical background, Calman insisted that they were related. 'First of all, we had to diagnose what was wrong, all the time keeping an open mind and checking all the other symptoms we could discern, constantly communicating with the patient as openly as possible,' he wrote. 'Gradually, though, we started to focus on the key issues and call on specialist knowledge, just as a clinician might want to do.' Kenneth Charles Calman was born in the Knightswood area of Glasgow in 1941, the elder of two sons of Arthur Calman, a mechanic at MacKinnon's, a textile manufacturer, who died from a heart attack when Kenneth was nine and his brother, Norman, was five. His mother, Grace (née Don), was a secretary who later typed his PhD thesis. He recalled how rationing lasted until 1954, claiming that in both his chief medical officer posts he told his political masters that 'if they really wanted a healthy population, they should bring it back'. The church was central to his childhood with Sunday school, Scripture Union camps, membership of the Boys' Brigade and Billy Graham's rallies; he was later ordained an elder in the Kirk. At Allan Glen's School, Glasgow, he occasionally helped out in an uncle's chip shop. He then studied medicine and biochemistry at the University of Glasgow, returning in 1970 to complete a PhD in dermatology. He also found time to play rugby and hockey, and during one summer vacation he worked as a hospital porter. He met Ann Wilkie during a student charity parade in 1960 and they were married in 1967. Ann, who became deputy headmistress of a primary school, survives him with their children Andrew, an IT professional, Lynn, a medical academic, and Susan, a stand-up comedian. During a series of house jobs Calman wrote his first book, Basic Skills for the Surgical Houseman (1971). He also spent a research year in London with Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the hospice movement, before moving into surgery. At the age of only 32 he was appointed professor of oncology at Glasgow and in 1989 was appointed chief medical officer of Scotland. Moving on to be chief medical officer of England in 1991, he famously declared that British beef was safe to eat, words that returned to haunt him during the BSE inquiry in 1998. 'If you look at 'safe' in ordinary speech, we do not mean that the driver we described as safe will never have an accident,' he told the hearings. In that sense the word 'safe' meant 'free from unacceptable risk or harm'. The inquiry thought otherwise. Meanwhile, he was dealing with fears of a plague outbreak after eight people in Britain were identified with symptoms. A small, dapper and erudite figure with a kindly manner, Calman collected cartoons and sundials. He maintained his passion for acquiring knowledge, describing himself as a 'philomath'. At various times he was president of the Boys' Brigade, chancellor of the University of Glasgow and chairman of the National Trust for Scotland and the National Library of Scotland. In addition to a raft of scientific papers he published poetry and other books including A Doctor's Line: Poetry and Prescriptions in Health and Healing (2014). The secret to his success was, he said, equanimity. 'The ability to remain calm and composed is important and I learnt this first in the operating theatre,' he wrote. 'But it is just the same in the public sector, when difficulties are presented. My motto for this is 'Keep Calman carry on'.' Professor Sir Kenneth Calman, chief medical officer for Scotland, 1989-91, was born on December 25, 1941. He died after a short illness on July 21, 2025, aged 83

Neanderthals were not ‘hypercarnivores' and feasted on maggots, scientists say
Neanderthals were not ‘hypercarnivores' and feasted on maggots, scientists say

The Guardian

time17 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

Neanderthals were not ‘hypercarnivores' and feasted on maggots, scientists say

For hungry Neanderthals, there was more on the menu than wild mammals, roasted pigeon, seafood and plants. Chemical signatures in the ancient bones point to a nutritious and somewhat inevitable side dish: handfuls of fresh maggots. The theory from US researchers undermines previous thinking that Neanderthals were 'hypercarnivores' who stood at the top of the food chain with cave lions, sabre-toothed tigers and other beasts that consumed impressive quantities of meat. Rather than feasting on endless mammoth steaks, they stored their kills for months, the scientists believe, favouring the fatty parts over lean meat, and the maggots that riddled the putrefying carcasses. 'Neanderthals were not hypercarnivores, their diet was different,' said John Speth, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Michigan. 'It's likely maggots were a major food.' Neanderthals were thought to be top of the food chain because of the high levels of heavy nitrogen in their bones. Nitrogen builds up in living organisms when they metabolise protein in their food. A lighter form of the element, nitrogen-14, is excreted more readily than the heavier form, nitrogen-15. As a result, heavy nitrogen builds up in organisms with each step up the food chain, from plants to herbivores to carnivores. While the levels of heavy nitrogen in Neanderthal bones place them at the top of the food chain, they would not have been able to handle the amount of meat needed to reach those levels, the researchers say. 'Humans can only tolerate up to about 4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, whereas animals like lions can tolerate anywhere from two to four times that much protein safely,' said Speth. Since many Indigenous groups around the world routinely consume maggots in putrefied meat, the researchers decided to explore their potential role. The experiments were not for the squeamish. Dr Melanie Beasley, a member of the team at Purdue University in Indiana, was formerly at the Forensic Anthropology Center, or Body Farm, at the University of Tennessee. There, researchers study donated human corpses that are left to decompose. The work helps forensic scientists hone their techniques, for example, to ascertain for how long people have been dead. Beasley measured heavy nitrogen in putrefying muscle and the maggots that infested the corpses. Heavy nitrogen rose slightly as muscle putrefied, but was far higher in the maggots. The same process would have occurred in carcasses the Neanderthals stored, Beasley said. The finding, reported in Science Advances, suggests that rather than consuming meat as ravenously as lions and other hypercarnivores, Neanderthals acquired high levels of heavy nitrogen by eating maggots, which themselves were enriched with heavy nitrogen. 'The only reason this is surprising is that it contradicts what we westerners think of as food,' said Karen Hardy, professor of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Glasgow. 'Elsewhere in the world, a very wide range of things are eaten, and maggots are a great source of protein, fat and essential amino acids.' 'It is a no brainer for Neanderthals,' she added. 'Put out a bit of meat, leave it for a few days then go back and harvest your maggots, its a very easy way to get good nutritious food.' 'How does it shift our thinking? The Neanderthals as top carnivores was nonsense, it was physiologically impossible. So this makes sense, but also explains these high nitrogen signals in a way that nothing else has done so clearly,' Hardy said.

HCA lifts 2025 profit forecast, flags insurance policy uncertainty
HCA lifts 2025 profit forecast, flags insurance policy uncertainty

Reuters

timean hour ago

  • Reuters

HCA lifts 2025 profit forecast, flags insurance policy uncertainty

July 25 (Reuters) - HCA Healthcare (HCA.N), opens new tab lifted its 2025 profit forecast but said it cannot determine how looming changes to insurance plans under Medicaid and Obamacare will impact 2026 earnings, sending the hospital operator's shares down 2% on Friday. Some COVID-era subsidies under Obamacare are set to lapse in 2026. That would impact patient coverage, lead to a spike in insurance premiums and cause a drop in enrollment numbers, leaving hospital operators such as HCA to foot a heftier bill for compensated care. "We continue to advocate strongly for their extension, but at this point we do not know what the outcome will be," CEO Samuel Hazen said during a call with analysts. Hazen said the company is working on a cost efficiency initiative to offset any impact from the subsidy expiry and other government actions such as Medicaid policy changes and tariffs. Still, the hospital chain operator raised its 2025 profit forecast to between $25.50 and $27 per share, from a range of $24.05 to $25.85 earlier. The latest forecast includes the expected impact from the Trump administration's current and future policies, including potential tariffs on imports. It also posted upbeat second-quarter results. Quarterly revenue rose 6.4% to $18.61 billion, compared with analysts' estimates of $18.50 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG. Adjusted profit came in at $6.84 per share, beating estimates of $6.25. However, HCA's same-facility inpatient and outpatient surgeries decreased by 0.3% and 0.6%, respectively, in the quarter ended June 30. Investors appeared concerned about upcoming regulatory changes that could lead to lower medical membership on the Obamacare and Medicaid plans, said Morningstar analyst Julie Utterback. "Share reaction may reflect that profit growth could slow materially for caregivers like HCA in the next couple of years." Utterback said.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store