A Swimmer Saved by What She Lost

The groundbreaking procedure may change the course of her life, and the future of amputations.CreditCreditRachel Woolf for The New York TimesSupported byBy David WaldsteinCOLORADO SPRINGS — The last thing Morgan Stickney remembers from before her lower leg was amputated is lying on a hospital gurney waiting for the anesthesia to take hold. A relatively minor foot injury in 2013 had dragged her down a rabbit hole of five surgeries, numerous examinations and untold theories, none of which relieved — or even explained — the constant, excruciating pain that left her unable to walk by day and then, cruelly, stabbed her awake at night.The only solutions offered by too many shrugging doctors were the prescription painkillers that, Stickney and her family knew, were turning a once cheerful teenager into a dreary, opioid-dependent 20-year-old pushing herself around her college campus on a kneeling scooter.The worst moment came during a chemistry exam one day, when the only clear thought Stickney could summon was the note she wrote to her professor on the paper: “I’m too high to take this test right now.”Not long after that, she made the agonizing, irreversible choice to have her lower left leg removed.“Opioid addiction is an epidemic,” she said. This was the only solution anyone was giving me.”Forced out of the pool by unrelenting pain, Stickney elected to have her leg amputated below the knee in a new medical procedure developed primarily by Matthew Carty, a specialist in limb restoration at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital in Boston.The amputation procedure that Carty performs is designed to enhance the vitality and the possibilities for the portion of the limb that remains. And while her experience has not been seamless, Stickney’s national team dreams, once abandoned, are flickering back into view.Nathan Manley, the coach of the resident program of the U.S. Paralympic team in Colorado Springs, where Stickney trains, said she was a serious contender to make the American team for the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo.Perhaps most important, she is feeling like herself again — the “nonnarcotic Morgan,” in her words, is having fun again.“Of course, I am,” she said. She continues to endure phantom pain — a torment for many amputees — but Carty said that he believed the issue stemmed from a nerve complication, and from the fact that she does more extensive physical activity (training twice a day, six days a week) than any of his previous 12 patients.He has told Stickney that a straightforward procedure should fix the nerve problem, but she said she would not consider it until after the Paralympics.