Mum’s plea for surgeons to amputate her leg after knee operations left her in constant pain
Julie Banwell has been in pain since tripping up concrete steps outside her son's school in April 2010
A DESPERATE mum is begging doctors to amputate her leg - as she'd rather lose a limb than suffer any more agony following a knee injury.
Julie Banwell tripped up concrete steps outside her son's school in April 2010, plunging her knee into the edge of the step.
Since then, she has endured two operations and lives in constant pain - unable to leave the house without her wheelchair.
Her agony has affected her family so badly her youngest son even wrote a letter to her consultant begging him to fix her leg.
Julie, 41, described her daily discomfort as nine or ten out of ten on the pain scale.
She said: "I'm in constant pain. I can't do anything without help, I'm tired all the time because everything takes so much out of me.
"I can't go through the day without having an hour's nap.
"My kids hear me crying with pain during the night. I can't go out anywhere without my wheelchair - we don't go for days out anymore.
"If the orthopaedic surgeon tells me that there is nothing more that they can do for me I will have to pay to amputate the leg privately and I will need to raise about £5,000.
"I can't cope with it anymore."
In the letter, 11-year-old Logan, who was seven at the time, wrote to doctors saying he was "mad" because his mum was still on crutches.
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The letter said: "I can't play water tig, water volleyball, pass, chase so you better take my mum off crutches or else."
After her original fall, the mum-of-three, who also has Leon, 21, Lakeisha, 17, went to her GP and had stitches but didn't realise she was walking around on a non-displaced fracture for 18 months.
Julie, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, said: "I was in constant pain and the doctors thought it was arthritis as a result of the fall. I went back to the doctors numerous times.
"My knee kept clamping up and it would just collapse on me.
"Eventually, it completely seized up in the bent position - there was no way of manipulating it.
"It was revealed that a piece of bone had broken off while I was still walking on it and it lodged underneath my knee.
"I had my first operation on it and I was walking around on crutches to support it."
Unfortunately for Julie, the operation - which included drilling into the bone to try to get the bone marrow to bleed - was unsuccessful. Then, surgeons tried again a year later - but little progress was made.
It was six months after this, in June 2012, that Julie fell again.
She said: "I was so unsteady on my feet that I fell over again and caused more fractures in my knee."
Julie was eventually transferred to Halifax Pain Clinic to try to manage her discomfort and she as diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS).
She said: "There is no cure for it. I'm in constant pain. I'm on morphine and constantly in a wheelchair.
"My leg is incredibly sensitive and sometimes I can't even put trousers on.
"It feels like my limb isn't even attached to my body. It's such a strange feeling.
"I'm even in pain in other parts of my body as a result - I've just had a steroid injection in my shoulder because that was damaged because of the crutches."
Now, Julie believes her only other option is amputation.
She said: "I've been told it's not normal protocol to have an amputation and it might actually make things worse.
"But if there's any possibility of me being able to walk again with a prosthetic leg I need to look into it.
"I need to do something - I can't give up hope."
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