Just One Foot: How Amputation Cured My Disability

Judy Johnson Berna is a wife, mother, sister, and daughter. She is also an elective amputee. After spending almost thirty years hating her deformed left foot, and doing her best to hide it, she decided it was time to get an upgrade. On January 12, 2004, she started over with a new foot and a new life. By June she was hiking trails with her children. On the first anniversary of her surgery she learned to ski. Every day she has been thankful for a foot that finally works and a life of new opportunities. This is the story of how she spent her childhood trying to figure out where she fit as her large family took in more and more foster children. Life became more complicated when her left foot stopped growing correctly at age ten. When repeated surgeries didn't help and doctors couldn't diagnose the problem, she tried her best not to burden her overworked parents. Her inability to run and jump seemed insignificant compared with the troubles her foster siblings faced. As a young adult she started quizzing orthopedic doctors about the idea of amputation. Every one of them told her it was a bad idea and signified medical failure, so she pushed the idea to the back of her mind. She married her college sweetheart and within a decade they had four children. By the time her youngest was a toddler, the Internet had grown enough to give her new answers. Answers that included hope. On a cold winter day she walked into a hospital on two feet and hopped out a day later with just one. She has never looked back. Whether you are an amputee or you know one -- or you need to make your own big life decision -- this story will speak to you. Judy shares her struggles, triumphs, and lessons learned. Her message at its core: Do what it takes to get the life you really want.

Judy Johnson Berna chose to have her left foot amputated in January of 2004. After living with a deformed foot most of her life, the upgrade to bionics was just what she needed to get back to an active life. She now hikes and skis with her husband and four children and is thankful she took the plunge and got rid of her old flesh and bone foot. She has a degree in Elementary Education and has been published in The Mothering Heights Manual for Motherhood and InMotion, the national amputee magazine. She wrote a weekly parenting column for her local paper in the years she lived in New York. She is also a core writer for the Wired Magazine blog GeekMom.com. In doing research before her amputation surgery she wanted to find a book about what an everyday amputee’s life was like. She never found one, so she wrote one.