Key points from today’s guests:
Terry Franz, Car Santa, avoided leg amputation
- Over the past 27 years, Terry, the owner of a used car lot, has donated thousands of cars, leading to the nickname of “Car Santa.”
- He had sextuple bypass heart surgery, then later peripheral artery disease which led to amputations of his toes.
- His condition became so serious, he went to The University of Kansas Health System to avoid having his entire leg amputated.
- He is doing well today and able to play Santa to help people in need get cars so they can go to work and take care of their families.
Dr. Axel Thors, vascular surgeon, The University of Kansas Health System
- From a patient standpoint, we want to give all the help that we can, but while also being honest and discussing the things that might not end up in a positive manner. It’s having a frank conversation -- good and bad -- and having a mutual agreement of what the goals are going to be. And then most importantly, understanding what the diagnosis is what treatment plans are available and in executing that plan.
- With Terry, our first goal was to understand where or what percentage of blood flow the legs are getting, because most people can heal if you have normal circulation. If not, it's kind of kind of like trying to get a plant to grow without water. If you don't have the blood flow, supplying the nutrients to the tissue beds, it's not going to heal. And so that's the first order of business is to establish Terry’s blood flow.
- Diabetes is one of the primary risk factors for peripheral arterial disease. Most importantly, however, diabetes also attacks the small vessels in the body, whether it's your small vessels in your feet, the small vessels in your eyes, or the small vessels in your kidneys, it attacks what we call the “end organs.”
- You have to think about arteries as plumbing for your body. You have the high pressure side which are the arteries. And the low pressure side which are the veins. Blockage on the inside of the artery eventually turns into plaque that accumulates on the inside of the pipe and that pipe becomes more narrowed. Subsequently, whatever is fed by that vessel receives less blood flow beyond that blockage.
- We took a pretty deep dive into his overall disease. The key with any kind of surgery is to getting to healthy margins and healthy bone so that you have the opportunity to heal and also to ensure that all infection has been removed.
- Sometimes you have to be more aggressive in order to solve the problem. And I think that's what we did in Terry’s case.
- The major takeaway is the “bury your head in the sand” philosophy doesn't work typically with your health. And we all have to do our part to maintain our health.
