US 41 Years Old Woman Get Limbs Amputated After Kidney Stones Surgery

 

The remarkable woman, a mother whose strength knows no bounds

When her doctor said to her that, your hands will have to be amputated as well. She courageously said

"If this is a decline that I had to make to be alive, I’m at peace,"

Her resilience is a bonfire of light, guiding other women or mothers through the darkest of storms. In the face of hardship, she has shown the world the true meaning of guts and grace. Her unwavering spirit inspires all to rise above our challenges and embrace life with appreciation.

How did the situation start?

It was one of the worst-case scenarios that can happen, and it just happened to me,” Mullins, 41 years old, who lives in Stanford, Kentucky, said.

Lucinda Mullins’ life-shifting torment began with a kidney stone the size of a granule of sand.

It started with an infection and sepsis, leaving the Kentucky mom on life support and ultimately forcing her doctors to amputate her legs in December. The most painful decision or news was that her arms would have to be amputated, too.

The most powerful words spoken by her that

“(But) I’ve never been so happy to be alive (due to this condition). If this is a sacrifice that I had to make to be alive, to see my family, and kids grow up, to see my friends, I’m at peace and I’m OK with it.”

Mullins’ story has obtained national attention after it was first reported by  NBC affiliate WLEX.

Is it a normal medical condition?

Generally, kidney stones come with the risk of a kidney infection, which can cause sepsis, which is the body’s life-threatening response to infection.

Health experts state that, typically, serious cases don’t happen often.

 “Severe sepsis and amputation following a kidney stone is rare and should not be considered as a common or expected complication of kidney stones in general,” Dr. Sylvia Rosas, a Boston nephrologist and president of the National Kidney Foundation, tells TODAY.com.

Case history:

Mullins, who is a nurse, said she didn’t have any health problems before she was diagnosed with kidney stones (in both of her kidneys) in 2023 after experiencing some back pain.

When the stones began to be more difficult in the fall, her urologist suggested preventative surgery to remove them.

First surgery:

In October, Mullins had the surgery done on her left kidney, which held more stones. Everything went well.

Second surgery:

The Mullin’s second surgery on the right kidney took place on Dec 2023. 1. This time, doctors told Mullins they couldn’t witness the stones, but it was nothing to be concerned about, she recalled.

Alarming symptoms:

Mullins, who is a nurse, said she didn’t have any health problems before she was diagnosed with kidney stones (in both of her kidneys) in 2023 after experiencing some back pain.

When the stones began to be more difficult in the fall, her urologist suggested preventative surgery to remove them.

Mullins was left with a ureteral stent placed inside her body.

However, a stent is a thin tube that helps the kidney drain urine after kidney stone surgery.

Decisive moment:

She came back home as instructed. A couple of days later, she started feeling sick. By Dec. 5, she had experienced

• Vomiting
• High fever
• Back pain

One day her husband saw her lying on the bathroom floor nomadic in and out of consciousness, and took her to the emergency room.

Findings and diagnosis:

Mullins’s blood pressure was 50/31 (which is dangerously low).

Mullin’s doctor did a CT scan to find out what was going on, and that was the moment when they saw the kidney stone that was lodged in there with enormous amounts of infection behind it.

Mullin’s whole body was shutting down:

A patient who has undergone a urological procedure to remove a stone can generally, develop an infection later. If urine has bacteria, it can then infect the stone. The stone can also obstruct the kidney from draining.

This infection needs to be treated immediately because patients can become septic promptly, which is a life-threatening condition.

Lucinda Mullins was numbed, intubated, and stabilized enough to be transferred to a better hospital in Lexington, Kentucky.

Mullin’s doctor told her that she is in a septic shock and would need quadruple amputation to save her life after kidney stone infection spread.

According to the Sepsis Alliance septic shock is the most severe form of sepsis. Due to this condition, she had multiple organ failure, including kidneys, lungs, and liver. She needs dialysis, a ventilator, and an ECMO heart-lung machine.

She says, my whole body was shutting down, I lay there deadened for about a week, without moving a muscle, I did not know if I was going to live because the machines were doing everything for her.

Her doctors gave her vasopressor drugs to combat her dangerously low blood pressure. Vasopressor drugs are used in the intensive care unit (ICU) to raise blood pressure, and narrow blood pressure, so that sent blood to vital organs.

Her husband says, but when these medications drove blood to her core, it was at the cost of the circulation in her farthest points.

DJ Mullins explains her feelings and says, “It was basically life over limb, those circulations never did come back in my legs and arms. Dead tissue and discoloration set in”.

Recovery:

At the time when Mullin was taken off the ventilator and recovered from unconsciousness, she asked her doctors to “shoot it to me straight.”

“My husband told me that in order to save my life, doctors had to give me medications that caused me to lose my limbs”, she says.

Both of her legs were amputated above the knee on Dec. 13.

She further says, “I just had this calm. I just felt this presence of God with me telling me it was going to be OK. I was breathing, and if that was the sacrifice that I had to make to be alive, I was OK with that. I was not upset. I wasn’t angry”

Both of her legs were amputated above the knee on Dec. 13.

Towards the new life:

DJ Mullins says both stones (the size of a grain of sand) were finally removed from her right kidney. One of them leads to a nightmare. All over that,

Further surgery:

Lucinda Mullins still faces surgery to amputate her arm. Doctors had hoped to save her elbow joint because that would make it easier to use prosthetics. After that terrifying time in the ICU, all of Mullin’s organs are working.

Mullins is still in a rehabilitation center in Lexington, where she has become skilled at how to power her core, control a power wheelchair with her head, and work on her balance.

Coming back to home:

In conclusion, she gets to go home on Jan, 12 for the first time since she was hospitalized in early December. Mullin's primary goal is to go to church on Sunday.

Mullin’s friends have set up a GoFundMe page for the family to assist with medical and other expenses.

She says about her miraculous and painful journey “Without my faith, there is no way I could be where I’m at today.”