May 5, 2025 • 54 mins
During this heartfelt interview, Marcia opens up about her personal battle with Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) — a condition that affects one in five people over age 60 and kills more people than cancer. Marcia discusses how, after suffering pain for two years and undergoing procedures to save her right big toe, she ultimately had to face the difficult experience of a toe amputation. Despite these challenges, she has become a fierce advocate for PAD awareness.Recognizing the Signs of Peripheral Artery Disease:
Marcia shares the critical symptoms of PAD, which include:
- Cold feet
- Pain or tightness in the calves when walking
- Muscle spasms
- Discoloration in the toes or legs
- Loss of hair growth on the legs
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everyone, this is Betsy Worsal, your host of Chatting
with Betsy.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Passion World Talk.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Radio Radio, a subsidiary global media network LLC. Our Mantra
is to educate and lay in and entertain. The views
of the guests may not represent those of the hosts
of the station. Folks, I have an extra special guest
with me today. I have with me today my dear friend,
(00:30):
Marcia burd who is not only a dear friend, she
was my first mentor in the land of dementia. And
Marcia is a pioneer of getting people encouraging people to
share their stories.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Marcia and I would talk.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
About that all the time, encouraging people to tell their
stories of caregiving when nobody would talk about it. And
I'll look at what is happening on social media. You
see so many people sharing any kind of caregiving story
and that's wonderful and it throws my heart to see
such a change. And it's about time. And I'm going
(01:17):
to tell you about Marcia Burr.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's about b u r R.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Marcia is on the board of Elder Options Than in Willison, Florida.
She is an instructor, certified instructor of tai Chi and
she also teaches hopefully say this right she gone, and
she has a YouTube channel called Marcia Cares, which I
(01:46):
highly recommend watching. There are videos that you will see
even me, my family, people through the years that Marcia
has videos of and Marcia likes to tell a story
through her videos. But Marcia is here today to talk
(02:08):
about her journey and what she went through recently with
a para I can't talk perphial artery disease, and Marsha
had a toe amputation, and she's going to talk about
the resources, wonderful resources.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
That I just learned about.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
And I want to welcome Marsha Marcia Burr, Welcome to
Chatting with Betsy.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Hey, Betsy, it's great to be here. It's really good
chatting with you. Once again. It's been quite a while
since we've done one of these. I think we've done
about four of them over the years. But you know,
I pop in now and then when I feel like
I have something interesting and illuminating to share. And yeah,
(03:02):
with that said, you did mention that I am a
recent recipient of a great right toe amputation and that
is all because of peripheral artery disease, which really, I
think should be more encompassing and include the veins as well,
(03:26):
which would make it then peripheral vascular disease.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That makes more sense to me.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Me too, because you know, the leg bones connected to
the knee bone, while the arteries are connected to the veins,
which is connected to the hard and it all pumps
around and it's all connected. So and.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
What were your people might be thinking, Okay, well, so
what is a perperal artery disease? And what were your
symptoms that made you wonder, you know, what's going on
with my toe?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah. Peripheral artery disease is blockages that occur in your
peripheral blood vessels, and peripheral means not up in like
your chest area or your heart area, but the ones
(04:34):
down in your limbs. And it usually affects the blood
vessels in your legs. Sometimes people get it in their
arms or maybe their necks, but generally the symptoms first
occur in your legs, and the symptoms can be really
subtle and people brush them off, which is part of
(04:56):
why it's so unheard of and often missed diagnosed and underdiagnosed.
It's because simple things like oh, my calves hurt when
I walk down my driveway in my mailbox, Well, that's
not a very far distance from most people unless you're
living out on some big plantation with a football field
(05:18):
long driveway, and most people, I don't think have those.
So if you walk a short distance and you start
feeling pains in your calves, tightness in your calves, that's
a symptom. Don't brush it off. If you wake up
in the middle of the night and you have a
bad Charlie horse, or you have like numbness entingling when
(05:41):
you're laying down, don't brush those symptoms off. They're very
important signs that your body is giving you that you
have peripheral artery disease. And the sooner you can diagnose
it and catch it, the better off, the better chances
you have of treating it without having to have an amputation.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yes, that is very important to know. And Mark, we've
talked about this for years of how important it is
to be your own advocate that if you are having
these symptoms and if your doctor says, oh, you know
some people get muffled cramps that you know, maybe it's
(06:27):
a magnesium deficiency, to insist.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
On getting.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Further evaluated to find out if you do exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Right, exactly right, let me ask you a question. Let
me ask the entire audience a question. When's the last
time you went to your primary care doctor and they
asked you to take off your shoes and socks and
they looked at your feet and they actually touched them.
When's the last time that.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
That ever happened?
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Okay, never happened. Well, there is a big piece of
the problem right there, is that we actually need to
get our primary care doctors on board with the symptoms
of this stuff. And I'll tell you something now, when
I see my primary care doctor, I take my shoes
and socks off on purpose, and I stick my little
piggies up so they have no choice but to look
(07:27):
at them, even though there's only nine of them. Now,
you know, I learned, and you know the first thing
you want to do if you have if you suspect
you have any symptoms like this, you want to get
a hold of your primary doctor and ask for a
very simple ultrasound test. It's called an A B as
(07:49):
a boy I ABI and that stands for an ankle
breakial index. And what this test does is they hook
a blood pressure cough around your arm and they take
your blood pressure there, that's your brachial pulse. Then they
put one down near your ankle and they measure the
(08:13):
pulse down in your lower leg, and then they compare
the ankle reading to your arm reading. And if there's
a big difference in the reading, if your ankle reading
is a lot lower than your brachial reading, then you
likely have peripheral artery disease and it's time to take
(08:37):
the next step.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Does the specialists do this test or does the primary
care doctor do it.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
It's an ultrasound test, so the primary care doctor orders
it and then it's tittn up by radiology. Covers ultrasound.
Radiology is a huge umbrella of medicine, and it covers ultrasound,
it covers MRI, it covers cat stands, it covers UH fluoroscopy.
(09:08):
It's done in surgeries, which is real time, three D
live time imaging. So it's a big umbrella. So it's
right done actually under radiology, but it can simply be
ordered by your primary doctor. It's a very simple, easy
test and it's a life it's a leg it's a
(09:30):
limb and life savor test. It really is.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
That's good to note that's never had a show Marcia
on pad before.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Well, so that is good, so I can be another
pioneer in this regard.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, so that's really great to know.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I know sometimes once in a while I get Charlie Hors's.
Not every day, but sometimes I get them out. That's
my primary care doctor about it, and you know, she said, well,
you know, stretch it out.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I mean, if I got it every day, I'll be
really concerned.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I've had them, you know, for years, once in a while,
but I'm fine when I walking and don't have any pain.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
But as you have.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
You know, folks, I just want to say any concerns
about your medical health, please consult your primary care doctor
because if you are ready have a caroinary artery disease,
if you're diabetic, or if you have kidney disease, this
(10:40):
is something that's very important too. If you have these
symptoms of pains in your legs, Charlie horses, muscle cramps,
definitely tell your primary care doctor or your specialist whoever
you see and insist on getting a further task done.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And you have to be you have to be your
own advocate.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And you know, I'll tell you another thing like, why
is this not heard of so much? Well, because our
primary doctors aren't really looking out for it yet. And
this is again why we have to be our own advocates.
So let me just run off another couple of things
to look out for. If you think you might have PAD.
(11:32):
Here's a good indicator. You look at your calves. Are
they less hairy than they used to be? I mean
women that don't shave, you know, or do you not
have to shave as often because there's not as much
hair on your legs. Do you have no hair on
(11:54):
your legs anymore? That is a definite indication, because hair
grows stops. It's one of the first things that stops
when there's lack of blood flow. It's not as necessary
as getting blood to the muscle. It's like the hair
can go, it's the muscle we need to pump blood
to forget about the hair. Another thing to look out
(12:17):
for was if you have skin discoloration on your foot
or on your toe. That's are your feet cold all
the time. Those are all symptoms that I had. I
had skin discoloration on my great right toe. That's how
this whole thing started for me. Just a couple of years.
Three years ago, I had a stint put in my pelvis,
(12:40):
which is called an Illyac stint, and the doctor at
the time told me, if you have any problems further
down your legs, you're gonna have to go see my husband,
he's a vascular surgeon. So what happened was my blood flow.
She opened up the blood flow down to my feet
more than it had been, and my toenails started growing again,
(13:01):
and I got this really bad, horrendous, deep deep under
the skin that you couldn't even see it ingrown toenail,
and so that's when my toes started getting discolored. And
that's when I started figuring out that it was a
blood circulation problem. With my other symptoms like having pain
(13:24):
at night, wake cramps, waking me up at night, the
cold seat, having to stop and rest after walking only
you know, a short distance, all of these things were
indicators to me. And because I do have a medical background,
I was able to do enough kind of on my
own figuring out stuff that I could tell it was
(13:48):
a blood flow issue. But let me warn people, don't
just go on Google and start diagnosing yourself. Please, You're
going to end up with everything under the sun Yeah,
your Google, Yeah, yeah, we do that. So, yeah, those
are some symptoms you can look out for. And so
(14:12):
that was three years ago, and then two years ago,
my toe got so bad that I couldn't sleep at
like ninety minutes at a time. It was like someone
had taken a taken the faucet on a hose and
turned it on full blast and then stepped on the
(14:33):
hose and crimped it off and it and it felt
like my big toe was going to explode. That's how
bad the pain was. And unfortunately, you know, I didn't
have good insurance back. You know, I didn't really have
any insurance until about four years ago, and from about
(14:55):
a decade of dementia caregiving, I was playing catch up
on my own health. And unfortunately, we caught my peripheral
artery disease at stage three, which is critical limb threatening
of schemia is what it's called. That's the medical term
(15:15):
for very severe lack of blood flow to your limbs.
And I had complete blockages in so many of my
arteries in both my legs, but my right leg was
the one that was showing symptoms. My left legs just
as bad as my right, but it's asymptomatic at this point,
(15:38):
so we're not messing with it right now. We're working
on my right leg. Unfortunately, because we caught this at
stage three of PAD, I ended up having to have
an amputation because the very tip of my toe got
dry gangreen or osteomyelitis, which is a bone infects, and
(16:00):
it was spreading slowly up my bones. So that's why
my toe had to go. But and I'm glad that
they took it off.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, what is that?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I know what it felt like, Marshall when I had
a hysterectomy and I lost that and I felt like
a sense of you know, a loss grieving. You know,
I was the part of my body. I didn't feel
that way when I lost my glow ladder, but with
my female organs, I did. I felt like a sense
(16:36):
of loss. Did you feel a sense of loss in
losing your toe?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Oh yeah. I went through the whole gamut, and I
started out in firm denial. I argued with my pediatrists
for two months about how much of my big toes
to be chopped off. I even got my interventional cardiologist
in on the conversation and he sided with me. And
so they just chopped off the very kit end of
(17:02):
my toe, and that procedure failed because yeah, there was
blood flow down in my toes at this point, but
not quite enough to keep the tip of my toe
from staying viable. So then I had to go back
in on March seventh and have my entire great right
(17:25):
toe removed. So you know, I was in denial about it,
stubborn about it, being a medical person who thinks she
knows everything, kind of attitude about it. And I had
to go back to the podiatrist and say, well, I
guess you were right after all. But you know, we
did give it the old college try, and she laughed
and agreed, and she said, hey, you know it was
(17:47):
worth the effort because when they take off your entire
big toe, they're taking off a big part of the
ball of your foot, which handles balance balancing. And believe me,
it's been an adventure and a journey learning how to
rebalance on nine toes instead of ten. And that's where
(18:10):
my tie tea and che gong has really been beneficial
for me.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I'm sure that helped you with your balance, getting your
balance backed, because I don't think people think, oh, okay,
so you lose your big toe, how does that affect
your balance? So I pick might think, oh, you know,
you could just walk normally, but you have to get
(18:37):
to relearn how to walk.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And much yeah, pretty well, because we talk about it.
You know, your big toe, that part that sticks out
on the insides of your legs, that that bone that
sticks out there, that is all part of your big toe.
And when they chop that off, you're losing a big
(19:01):
portion of the base of your foot, which is the
base of your balance. You know, your toe. Your foot
isn't as white as it once was. It's narrower now,
so you have less foot to balance on.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
So that explains why my son's friend who had a
sew imputation, that's why I see him have trouble walking.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
You can tell him.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
You know, it's been seven weeks since my amputation surgery,
since the second one, and I still have a little
white limp in my gate. But trust me, I practice
walking every day consciously, mindfully going, you know, putting my
(19:52):
weight through properly, and being very mindful of how my
foot mechanics are doing, how I'm moving properly. And it
does take some brain retraining, it does. But again since
I've been practicing tai chi and chiyong for so long,
it's kind of second nature to me.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Balance well. For people who.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Have not taken tai chi or the other one chee kwon,
do they go for physical therapy.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
To get their balance. I have in home physical therapy
twice a week, and the PT person says, wow, your
balance is great. I said, well, good, let's work on
strengthening my right leg because I've been gimping around walking
unevenly for the past two years and my right leg
(20:55):
is a lot weaker than my left leg. So that's
what I've been focused on in my PT. But you know,
people just starting out or lead very sedentary lifestyles and
don't aren't very active and don't get up in rock much,
they would be good to have pets that includes an
(21:16):
extensive balance portion to it as well. And there's all
kinds of simple little exercises that can be done. I'm
gearing up to doing some more YouTube videos to show
some of these exercises. But you know, first things first,
and that means being the care receiver and continuing the
(21:40):
care of my foot until my incision is completely closed.
And it's for the most part is, but there's still
one little tiny area that might possibly open up again
if it got traumatized. So I'm being extra careful still
for you know, another month. Although I was told today
(22:02):
that I can actually go out and start doing my
outdoor jobs again, which thrills me. No end, I can't
believe it because I've been cooped up in my home.
I have spring fever and cabin fever.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah, you are an outdoors first and you like working outdoors.
How can someone go about picking a doctor.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
To make questions? Betsy?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
You know, but dere told you mentioned interventional cardiologist.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Ron? Well, let me back up just a minute, and
here's another reason why if you have PAD, it can
be a big learning curve to begin with. Uh, there's
actually four different medical specialties that treat pads. The first
one and most often heard of, is a vascular surgeon. Well,
(23:04):
surgeons like to cut you open. Then there is good
old interventional radiology, which has been around for decades and decades,
and they can they do amazing procedures, including some lower
(23:24):
limb interventions. And then after interventional radiology was booming, their
other sub specialties split off from it, including like neuro imaging,
and UH, interventional cardiology was was kind of born out
(23:51):
of interventional radiology, and an interventional cardiologist intervenes instead of
cutting you open and doing bypasses, and the way they
intervene is through these UH procedures that are like you
remember that old movie called The Fantastic Voyage where a
(24:12):
bunch of scientists were shrunk down, miniaturized and injected into
the blood vessel of a human. Well, it's it's an old,
old classic, it's an old anyway. That's kind of what
interventional cardiology is about. Because they take the tiny, tiny, tiny,
(24:33):
tiny guide wires and they insert them under floro under
real time imaging into your blood vessel, and then they
they use some contrast medium and then they follow the
contrasts along and they can see where any blockages are.
(24:55):
And that procedure is called an angiogram. And from the
if you've had an angiogram, they'll tell you, well, you
don't have any blockages, or you're starting to get a
blockage here, or you're totally occluded here and here and
here and here. And that was my case. I was
a mess. And they proceeded to clear out these blockages
(25:20):
by using these little miniature guide wires and then they
could do after ectomies. It's called where they kind of
laser roto router out the plaque build up on the
inside of your blood vessel. Imagine a small blood vessel
with this little, tiny, tiny laser thing burning away plaque
(25:43):
inside of a blood vessel. It's amazing, but it works.
And honestly, I went first to a vascular surgeon after
I had a step placement and I had a complete
(26:04):
vein mapping done, and I said, look, I want the
worst case scenario. And so the vascular surgeon said, well,
you're a hard case. You don't have any good, viable
other veins we could pull to use as a bypass
to go around this blockage here and that blockage there.
And so they tried and said no, we couldn't even
(26:24):
get access in. We had to stop up near your
inside your semeral artery near my thigh. That's how blocked.
I was up in my thigh and he told me
that my choices were to live with the pain or
have an above knee amputation. Well, I'm like, well, I'll
(26:51):
get back to you on that doc. And so then
I later asked them, well, what other Are there any
other doctors you know, I mean this is a teaching
research hospital. Is there any one else I might be
able to see who could help me? And crickets. This
vascular surgeon didn't even bother to tell me about interventional
cardiologists or vascular medicine or interventional radiologists who might be
(27:13):
able to help me. No, no, no, you know how
I found out me a medical person. I found out
I found out, oddly enough, through my relationships and networking
in dementia care partnering. And this woman named Daisy Vesk
(27:34):
who's a big time dementia care advocate. Her husband has
peripheral artery disease, and she sent me a message one
day and said, hey, why don't you join this group
Peripheral Artery Disease Support on Facebook? And so I did,
and I was amazed because the woman who founded this group,
(27:56):
her name is Kim McNicholas, and she's absolutely so passionate
about saving people's limbs. She's off and up in the
middle of the night talking with doctors in the er
who are ready to chop some poor person's leg off,
trying to say stop, wait, there's a doctor in town
that can treat this without such drastic measures as amputating
(28:20):
this person's leg. And so that's how I found the
two interventional cardiologists who have since saved me from an
abovenee amputation. It's absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Well, you pointed out something very interesting and important, Marcia,
and that is how important it is for us to
share our information and knowledge with each other to help
support one another. And how important support groups aren't for information,
(28:56):
for advocacy and support, just supporting each other. It's very
important no matter what you were support you you were
looking for, you know, whatever group, either it's caregiving or
PAD group or any group, it's so important for people
(29:19):
to share information to help others.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
You've hit the nail right on the.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Head, absolutely, And I've been saying this for a decade,
for years ago in the beginning of dementia child adventures
with my wife Kaydana. Yes, and honestly, all of the
tools and lessons I learned and dementia caregiving have helped
(29:48):
me through my present post dementia journey into PAD. And
that lesson today is the lesson of not the care give,
but being the lesson of the care receiver, learning how
how to receive care. How do we get good care
(30:09):
in this day and age. It means being your own advocate,
listening to other people's stories, doing some research, getting some
support from support groups on Facebook, to support from your doctors,
getting your doctors to intercommunicate with each other, regardless of
(30:29):
their special fields, because again, you know, socialists, they only
focus on one little area of the body, and sometimes
they forget that it's the whole package deal and the
whole thing works running together as one whole system. And
so case in point, that's why I had my interventional
cardiology talk directly with my pediatrists about what was going
(30:53):
on until they could come to a consensus about just
how much of my coast should be chopped off. And
we don't learn this stuff without asking for help. And
I don't know why it is that some of the
best caregivers I know are the worst at receiving help
(31:17):
or asking for help. I don't know what causes that.
I just don't understand. And that's that's why I continue
to say, share your story. You know I'm posting. I've
been posting for I don't know, maybe a year or
two now, health updates on my Facebook page. And it's
(31:37):
not to get sympathy or anything like that. It's exactly
wore story, hoping that some of the information I provide
will give some education and support to other people who
might not even have a clue that they have pad
that might be looking at a month a year down
(31:59):
the road having a leg amputato because they didn't pay
attention to the earlier signs.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yes, and that's why it's important.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Like people think, oh, you know, people might judge someone
for telling their stories, sharing their experiences, but I know
personally that I share my experiences to help other people
so they don't make the same mistakes that I made,
and maybe they can learn from my experience. And I
(32:32):
learned from hearing other stories. I learned so much in
caregiving groups when I was hungry and thirsty for knowledge
and to know that I wasn't alone, and.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
I was just immediately when I saw you, Marsha.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I know I said that some shows before, I said,
I have got to know this woman.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Marsha was ahead of her time.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I'm ahead of my time, and yes, I will to
our own morn.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I guess I.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Will, because folks, we were the pioneers. And I said
it before and I will say it we were doing things,
saying things long before anyone else. And I'm just grateful
to you, Marcia, and I always will be for sharing
your story, for being so open and honest. And by
(33:32):
the way, folks Marcia and daydonad, I learned about the
happy Place, And yes I did think Marshall was a
little cuckoos for us. How can you be happy and
your spouse is dying from Alzheimer's or will die? And
you know I had learned on my own, but Marsha
was right. You can find happiness along with the sadness.
(33:56):
And you know you're teaching people about PAD.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
How important is that people don't know about it? They
really don't.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
And now people can know the resources will be in
the blog that you can.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Look for.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
It amazes you can. You can ask one hundred random
people on the street, do you know anybody who's had
a heart attack? People go, yeah, yeask them you know
anybody's had a stroke? They say sure, And you ask
do you know anybody who has pa D? The most
(34:42):
common answer is what's that? What's that? And the reason
why it's is because it's underdiagnosed, it's misdiagnosed. It's often
but you go to the doctor. Yet your hip hurts
and they go, oh, well you're ba out, you know,
let's send you to an ortho guy. Or your knees hurt,
(35:06):
or you know, oh you have cramps in your legs. Oh,
we'll work it out, or you know, they just blow
off these initial symptoms. And uh, that's why it's so
important that I urge people that when you see your
primary doctor, please take off your shoes and socks and
have your doctor look at your feet and touch them.
(35:28):
Are they cold? Do they have weird? Are they numb?
Do they kingle? All these or symptoms and we blow
them off and say, oh, well, you know, it's just
you know, I'm getting older, or oh it's just my
back acting up, or my hip, or oh my knee,
and all the the whole time, it could be peripheral
(35:49):
artery disease. And meanwhile, these people are getting all these
other back surgeries and hip replacements done and all along
it could have been a blood vessel blockage.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
That's yeah, that's very helpful information. Uh you were a smoker, Marcia,
You're smoking have anything to do with this situation of having.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Pad listen, you know, Uh, here's a weird thing. People
with diabetes and kidney problems often get pads. Well, I
don't have diabetes and my kidney function is great. So
what's what caused my pad? Well, I'll tell you smoking
(36:34):
and drinking for forty years of my life, smoking and drinking,
and plus the fact that I just have cement for bloody,
you know. So I have to keep my cholesterol under control.
I have to watch my diet, I have to exercise,
I have to pay it. I have to keep my
feet clean. I have to touch them and look at them
(36:55):
every day.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
I have to pay attention to what my bodies tell me.
And this support group was so instrumental in helping save
my limb I can't. I can't give enough praise to
Ken McNicholas. And she's the CEO of a nonprofit called
(37:22):
The Waytomhart dot org and you can go on that
page you can find the Legs Savor hotline phone number.
If you have any of those symptoms, you can call
eight three three PA d LEGS and the people that
(37:43):
answer will help direct you to a qualified doctor in
your area who will help intervene, hopefully before you reach
the stage of an amputation. And she also won the
(38:03):
best Female Podcast of the Year for twenty twenty five,
I believe, or maybe it was twenty twenty four, but
I just recently heard it announced. So she's a phenomenal woman.
She's very passionate about PAD and I strongly urge anybody
who has any kind of question of a symptom to
(38:27):
reach out to the Global PAD Association, which is the
same thing as the Way Toomyheart dot org, and they
will be more than happy to help. Honestly, I can't
tell you even if it's the middle of the night.
I know Kim has taking phone calls in the middle
of the night to help someone in an er not
(38:49):
have their leg amputated. So that is very amazing.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
That is that's great information, very important information to know
because a lot of people they don't hear too much
about PAD in the news. I know about it because I,
you know, worked as a nurse and I coworker. And
this is going back thirty years ago. She was diabetic,
(39:14):
a heavy smoker, and she had severe PAD, and you know,
it's very sad, you know, in a way, to lose
a limb, you know, to lose your your toe, you
know foot, that's hard to you know, it's just a readjustment.
(39:37):
My son's friend who is diabetic and has heart disease,
lost his toe I think a year or two ago,
and he's a young man in his forties. And you know,
we had to listen to our bodies, Martion, And you
brought up that very good point with that, because our bodies,
when we have pain, it's telling us something. We need
(40:00):
to listen exactly, don't have.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
The time we blow it off and say, oh, suck
it up, push through, blah blah blah. And now our
bodies are sending pain signals for a.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Reason, absolutely, and we need to pay attention. And folks,
if your doctor will now listen to you, then go
get another one. Get another doctor, get another opinion.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Even a third or fourth opinion. It's like what you exactly,
go get a third or fourth opinion, even because it
could save your limb. And let me tell you a
few fun facts about pads that most people don't know.
Did you know that PAD kills more people than most
common cancers combine, more than breast cancer, prostate cancer, call
(40:50):
and cancer, all the main cancers combined. PAD kills more people, well,
those cancers combined. Yes, and one out of five people
over the age of sixty we'll get PAD, and it's
getting diagnosed at a younger and younger age. I suspect
(41:11):
largely in part to our diet and to our sedentary lifestyle.
The best exercise of all for PAD. Believe it or not,
it seems kind of counterintuitive when you're in such pain,
but the best exercise for PAD is walking. Walking is
the very best exercise you can do.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
That's good to know too. Walking is a great exercise.
They even recommended that when man had got diagnosed with
early onset. They said, walking exercise is the best thing
you could do.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Yeah, GayDonna had diabetes, and you know, I could always
tell when her sugar would go up because she'd get
at and weird, and so I'd say, hey, let's just
go take a walk. And, honest to god, a ten
minute walk. We'd check her sugar before the walk, and
the way we'd check it after a ten minute walk,
and it would have dropped like eighty points for sugar level.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
That's just.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
It's amazing. It's very good cardiovascular, and it's especially good
at growing these You know, our our bodies are so amazing.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Our bloods ups.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Are like this vast highway with all these little country
roads in them, and like if if the if there's
a traffic jam in one area and traffic stops, well,
your body builds these collateral blood vessels, offshoots new blood
vessels to carry the blood around the blockage. And the
(42:52):
way that these collateral blood vessels are grown is through walking, walking, walking, walking,
walking till it hurt, resting a couple of minutes, rubbing
your legs or whatever, and then walking some more, walking, walking, walking.
It suggested that you walk. Oh, you know, they's say
ten thousand steps a day, but you know, even if
(43:15):
you're just walking fifteen or thirty minutes a day, it
will change your whole life. It will give you more energy,
it'll give you more confidence because it helps with your balance.
And when when you're not afraid of falling, you're more confident.
When you're more confident, you just feel better. And it's
(43:35):
as simple as you're walking fifteen, fifteen thirty minutes a day.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
That is a great advice. And the older people get
they do start to have balance issues, and that's why
it's important to mattain your core strength with exercise and
with what you do.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Marisia which is getting more were popular.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
The tai chi, Yes, tich is wonderful, the balance, because
the movements are so slow. You know, it's harder to
move slowly than it is to move quickly.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
It really is.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
I mean even try just picking up your right legs
slowly and moving it, lifting your knee up high and
moving it out sideways while standing. Doing that slow, you
might even feel wobbly on your other leg because you're
not used to it. But if you do it fast while,
it's easy. So that's why taichi is so good. It's
(44:42):
the slow movements combined with proper breathing and the mindfulness,
the focus upon which we we put upon our breathing
and our proper movements. And that's why tai chi and
chi gone are so good for the body and the soul.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Yes, learning that's coming out more.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
I think I saw something about it in the art magazine.
I know I've seen about yoga, but they you're I'm
saying much more about tai chi than I've ever had before.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
And uh, the chi chigan they pronouncement, Yes you did.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Chigg You know, that's becoming more and more popular, and
why not take a class get it cleared? Up with
your doctor first, just to make sure. I know, in
the senior center or my community center in town, I
think they're teaching uh classes in that I know yoga, but.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
It could very be well be the same class I'm
certified to teach, which is called tai chi for arthritis
and Paul.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
And that's so important. You know, you read.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
A lot, you know, I have the art magazine, and
you read a lot about you know, as people get older,
and I'm sixty seven, maintaining your core strength and maintaining
your balance. And I have issues now with my neck.
I've had it for a very long time. And the
(46:28):
neurologist said, Betsy, you have to exercise your neck every
day for the rest of your life if you don't
want to have surgery.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Well that's all that took. Marcia. I saw I had
spacked off. I did.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
I slacked off, folks, And he told me that, And
now I'm back to doing I'm going to physical therapy,
but I'm back to doing my neck exercises every day,
the strength of my neck, because that's the only thing
I can do. I can't change my bones, but I
can change them, you know, get the muscles. And my
(47:02):
next stronger to help support my cervical vertebrate. And yeah,
I mean, do what you can, and we always should
do what we can do to improve our health before
(47:23):
a crisis happens. And I know if you're yeah, especially
if you're a caregiver, you know that Marsia, we put
it off, we put it off, and you really need
to take care of you. Even if you were a caregiver,
you have to take care of yourself.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
You know.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
Some of the looking at that on my caregiving journey
from today, I think, you know, some of the most
simplest things would have been the most beneficial to me
if I had just taken the time to do them.
And the two most simple beneficial things to help our health,
(48:05):
in my opinion, are diet and exercise. Diet and exercise,
eat real food, and keep on moving, keep on keeping on.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yes, yes, that's that is for sure.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Last year, I can't even remember the guy's name. There's
a medical doctor. They both were medical doctors, and I've
got the name of the book. But they said that
diet helps can help prevent some dimensions because we run
a good diet, and of course you know there is
(48:48):
hereditarian things to run in your families.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
But do what you can to fight that.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
You know, neat a good diet, healthy diet, and exercise
to help prevent diabetes, which will help prevent kidney disease,
which helps prevent you know, it just goes on and on.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
It's like dementia which helps prevent you know, pa D.
Just diet, exercise, simple basic things to eat, real food,
do real exercise. Pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
That is, yes, yes, that is a great advice.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Well, as we wrap up here, Marcia, how can people
connect with you.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
Easy enough? I'm on Facebook. My name is Marcia m
A r C I A burr b U r R
and I'm the Marshall bird that has a picture of
Rosie the Riveter but it says we can be it
instead of we can do it. So that's me On Facebook,
my Wallace public I post videos that I've made over
(49:56):
the years. I post thoughts about, uh, just different things
I think about and remember, and I presently I'm sharing
my journey dealing with pa D. You can also find
me on YouTube. I have a channel that's called Marcia Cares.
(50:21):
That's a good way to reach out to me. Feel
free to send me a message on Facebook anytime. I'll
get back to you whenever. And I'd like to lead
one last thought about something coming up that I'm planning
with Ken Nicholas and the Waytomyheart dot Org. September is
(50:45):
National Peripheral Artery Disease Month, and we're gonna do a
little contest thing called Rock Your Walk. And this was
my idea. But the idea is that we're going to
(51:05):
be selling little rock painting tips and people can paint
rocks with the PAD hotline number on it or the
hashtag PAD help on it, and they can plant these
rocks around in high trafficked areas like your primary doctor's office,
(51:30):
or the drug store, or just you know, at a
local park, and the rocks found the most, the rocks
found in the most populated areas, will win a little prize.
We have different contests running the whole month. One each
week we'll have little YouTube videos and uh, it's all
(51:53):
about getting awareness out about PAD and what you can
do to help prevent having and an amputation, what you
can do to save life and limb And so look
forward to the month of September. We'll be gearing up
this contest, maybe a couple months before putting the word
out so you can buy your rock painting kids and
(52:16):
start painting them and it's just called rock your Walk.
It'll be a flashtag rock your.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Walk, Rock your Rock.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Yeah, w rock your Walk.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Ock your Rock. I like that. Well, thank you so much,
Marsha Burfer.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
Sharing your story and informing the audience about pads very important.
All the resources will be in the blog, and information
about Marcia and her YouTube channel Marcia Cares will be
in the blog that Genie White is the station and
as your rights. Thank you Genie, and Genie produces the show,
(53:03):
and I want to thank everyone for listening. Please share
the show to help other people. That's what we're here
for is to help you, So please share the show.
Maybe you know someone that has PAD, maybe you know
someone who has symptoms, maybe you have it yourself. And
(53:25):
the information that will be in the blog is very
helpful and it can really change someone's life. Sharing stories,
sharing information is vital, and that's why it's important to
share information and share.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
My show so good.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
I want to help as many people as possible and
I can only do it if you will share the show.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
So I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
And Johnny with Betsy is for free to subscribe to
if you don't are ready on Spotify, Freaker, Amazon Music
to name just a few places where you could hear it.
And you want to thank William Coldwell, who's CEO of
Passional Roll Talk Radio Network, who makes us all possible.
And as I always say, you could follow me on
(54:17):
Facebook Betsy E.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Worzel.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
W or Zel and I have a support group passiontag
kick Alzheimer's ass movement in the world where you could
be anything. Folks, Please be kind and shine. You're life
right because we need it now more than ever before.
Until chat with you again, be safe. This is Betsy Worzel.
(54:41):
You're a host of Chinning with Betsy on Passional Roll
Talk Radio Network, a subsidiary of Global Media Network llc B.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
Buy now.
Hello, everyone, this is Betsy Worsal, your host of Chatting
with Betsy.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Passion World Talk.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Radio Radio, a subsidiary global media network LLC. Our Mantra
is to educate and lay in and entertain. The views
of the guests may not represent those of the hosts
of the station. Folks, I have an extra special guest
with me today. I have with me today my dear friend,
(00:30):
Marcia burd who is not only a dear friend, she
was my first mentor in the land of dementia. And
Marcia is a pioneer of getting people encouraging people to
share their stories.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Marcia and I would talk.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
About that all the time, encouraging people to tell their
stories of caregiving when nobody would talk about it. And
I'll look at what is happening on social media. You
see so many people sharing any kind of caregiving story
and that's wonderful and it throws my heart to see
such a change. And it's about time. And I'm going
(01:17):
to tell you about Marcia Burr.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's about b u r R.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Marcia is on the board of Elder Options Than in Willison, Florida.
She is an instructor, certified instructor of tai Chi and
she also teaches hopefully say this right she gone, and
she has a YouTube channel called Marcia Cares, which I
(01:46):
highly recommend watching. There are videos that you will see
even me, my family, people through the years that Marcia
has videos of and Marcia likes to tell a story
through her videos. But Marcia is here today to talk
(02:08):
about her journey and what she went through recently with
a para I can't talk perphial artery disease, and Marsha
had a toe amputation, and she's going to talk about
the resources, wonderful resources.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
That I just learned about.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
And I want to welcome Marsha Marcia Burr, Welcome to
Chatting with Betsy.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Hey, Betsy, it's great to be here. It's really good
chatting with you. Once again. It's been quite a while
since we've done one of these. I think we've done
about four of them over the years. But you know,
I pop in now and then when I feel like
I have something interesting and illuminating to share. And yeah,
(03:02):
with that said, you did mention that I am a
recent recipient of a great right toe amputation and that
is all because of peripheral artery disease, which really, I
think should be more encompassing and include the veins as well,
(03:26):
which would make it then peripheral vascular disease.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
That makes more sense to me.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Me too, because you know, the leg bones connected to
the knee bone, while the arteries are connected to the veins,
which is connected to the hard and it all pumps
around and it's all connected. So and.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
What were your people might be thinking, Okay, well, so
what is a perperal artery disease? And what were your
symptoms that made you wonder, you know, what's going on
with my toe?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah. Peripheral artery disease is blockages that occur in your
peripheral blood vessels, and peripheral means not up in like
your chest area or your heart area, but the ones
(04:34):
down in your limbs. And it usually affects the blood
vessels in your legs. Sometimes people get it in their
arms or maybe their necks, but generally the symptoms first
occur in your legs, and the symptoms can be really
subtle and people brush them off, which is part of
(04:56):
why it's so unheard of and often missed diagnosed and underdiagnosed.
It's because simple things like oh, my calves hurt when
I walk down my driveway in my mailbox, Well, that's
not a very far distance from most people unless you're
living out on some big plantation with a football field
(05:18):
long driveway, and most people, I don't think have those.
So if you walk a short distance and you start
feeling pains in your calves, tightness in your calves, that's
a symptom. Don't brush it off. If you wake up
in the middle of the night and you have a
bad Charlie horse, or you have like numbness entingling when
(05:41):
you're laying down, don't brush those symptoms off. They're very
important signs that your body is giving you that you
have peripheral artery disease. And the sooner you can diagnose
it and catch it, the better off, the better chances
you have of treating it without having to have an amputation.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yes, that is very important to know. And Mark, we've
talked about this for years of how important it is
to be your own advocate that if you are having
these symptoms and if your doctor says, oh, you know
some people get muffled cramps that you know, maybe it's
(06:27):
a magnesium deficiency, to insist.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
On getting.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Further evaluated to find out if you do exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Right, exactly right, let me ask you a question. Let
me ask the entire audience a question. When's the last
time you went to your primary care doctor and they
asked you to take off your shoes and socks and
they looked at your feet and they actually touched them.
When's the last time that.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
That ever happened?
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Okay, never happened. Well, there is a big piece of
the problem right there, is that we actually need to
get our primary care doctors on board with the symptoms
of this stuff. And I'll tell you something now, when
I see my primary care doctor, I take my shoes
and socks off on purpose, and I stick my little
piggies up so they have no choice but to look
(07:27):
at them, even though there's only nine of them. Now,
you know, I learned, and you know the first thing
you want to do if you have if you suspect
you have any symptoms like this, you want to get
a hold of your primary doctor and ask for a
very simple ultrasound test. It's called an A B as
(07:49):
a boy I ABI and that stands for an ankle
breakial index. And what this test does is they hook
a blood pressure cough around your arm and they take
your blood pressure there, that's your brachial pulse. Then they
put one down near your ankle and they measure the
(08:13):
pulse down in your lower leg, and then they compare
the ankle reading to your arm reading. And if there's
a big difference in the reading, if your ankle reading
is a lot lower than your brachial reading, then you
likely have peripheral artery disease and it's time to take
(08:37):
the next step.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Does the specialists do this test or does the primary
care doctor do it.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
It's an ultrasound test, so the primary care doctor orders
it and then it's tittn up by radiology. Covers ultrasound.
Radiology is a huge umbrella of medicine, and it covers ultrasound,
it covers MRI, it covers cat stands, it covers UH fluoroscopy.
(09:08):
It's done in surgeries, which is real time, three D
live time imaging. So it's a big umbrella. So it's
right done actually under radiology, but it can simply be
ordered by your primary doctor. It's a very simple, easy
test and it's a life it's a leg it's a
(09:30):
limb and life savor test. It really is.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
That's good to note that's never had a show Marcia
on pad before.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Well, so that is good, so I can be another
pioneer in this regard.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, so that's really great to know.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I know sometimes once in a while I get Charlie Hors's.
Not every day, but sometimes I get them out. That's
my primary care doctor about it, and you know, she said, well,
you know, stretch it out.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I mean, if I got it every day, I'll be
really concerned.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I've had them, you know, for years, once in a while,
but I'm fine when I walking and don't have any pain.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
But as you have.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
You know, folks, I just want to say any concerns
about your medical health, please consult your primary care doctor
because if you are ready have a caroinary artery disease,
if you're diabetic, or if you have kidney disease, this
(10:40):
is something that's very important too. If you have these
symptoms of pains in your legs, Charlie horses, muscle cramps,
definitely tell your primary care doctor or your specialist whoever
you see and insist on getting a further task done.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And you have to be you have to be your
own advocate.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
And you know, I'll tell you another thing like, why
is this not heard of so much? Well, because our
primary doctors aren't really looking out for it yet. And
this is again why we have to be our own advocates.
So let me just run off another couple of things
to look out for. If you think you might have PAD.
(11:32):
Here's a good indicator. You look at your calves. Are
they less hairy than they used to be? I mean
women that don't shave, you know, or do you not
have to shave as often because there's not as much
hair on your legs. Do you have no hair on
(11:54):
your legs anymore? That is a definite indication, because hair
grows stops. It's one of the first things that stops
when there's lack of blood flow. It's not as necessary
as getting blood to the muscle. It's like the hair
can go, it's the muscle we need to pump blood
to forget about the hair. Another thing to look out
(12:17):
for was if you have skin discoloration on your foot
or on your toe. That's are your feet cold all
the time. Those are all symptoms that I had. I
had skin discoloration on my great right toe. That's how
this whole thing started for me. Just a couple of years.
Three years ago, I had a stint put in my pelvis,
(12:40):
which is called an Illyac stint, and the doctor at
the time told me, if you have any problems further
down your legs, you're gonna have to go see my husband,
he's a vascular surgeon. So what happened was my blood flow.
She opened up the blood flow down to my feet
more than it had been, and my toenails started growing again,
(13:01):
and I got this really bad, horrendous, deep deep under
the skin that you couldn't even see it ingrown toenail,
and so that's when my toes started getting discolored. And
that's when I started figuring out that it was a
blood circulation problem. With my other symptoms like having pain
(13:24):
at night, wake cramps, waking me up at night, the
cold seat, having to stop and rest after walking only
you know, a short distance, all of these things were
indicators to me. And because I do have a medical background,
I was able to do enough kind of on my
own figuring out stuff that I could tell it was
(13:48):
a blood flow issue. But let me warn people, don't
just go on Google and start diagnosing yourself. Please, You're
going to end up with everything under the sun Yeah,
your Google, Yeah, yeah, we do that. So, yeah, those
are some symptoms you can look out for. And so
(14:12):
that was three years ago, and then two years ago,
my toe got so bad that I couldn't sleep at
like ninety minutes at a time. It was like someone
had taken a taken the faucet on a hose and
turned it on full blast and then stepped on the
(14:33):
hose and crimped it off and it and it felt
like my big toe was going to explode. That's how
bad the pain was. And unfortunately, you know, I didn't
have good insurance back. You know, I didn't really have
any insurance until about four years ago, and from about
(14:55):
a decade of dementia caregiving, I was playing catch up
on my own health. And unfortunately, we caught my peripheral
artery disease at stage three, which is critical limb threatening
of schemia is what it's called. That's the medical term
(15:15):
for very severe lack of blood flow to your limbs.
And I had complete blockages in so many of my
arteries in both my legs, but my right leg was
the one that was showing symptoms. My left legs just
as bad as my right, but it's asymptomatic at this point,
(15:38):
so we're not messing with it right now. We're working
on my right leg. Unfortunately, because we caught this at
stage three of PAD, I ended up having to have
an amputation because the very tip of my toe got
dry gangreen or osteomyelitis, which is a bone infects, and
(16:00):
it was spreading slowly up my bones. So that's why
my toe had to go. But and I'm glad that
they took it off.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, what is that?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I know what it felt like, Marshall when I had
a hysterectomy and I lost that and I felt like
a sense of you know, a loss grieving. You know,
I was the part of my body. I didn't feel
that way when I lost my glow ladder, but with
my female organs, I did. I felt like a sense
(16:36):
of loss. Did you feel a sense of loss in
losing your toe?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Oh yeah. I went through the whole gamut, and I
started out in firm denial. I argued with my pediatrists
for two months about how much of my big toes
to be chopped off. I even got my interventional cardiologist
in on the conversation and he sided with me. And
so they just chopped off the very kit end of
(17:02):
my toe, and that procedure failed because yeah, there was
blood flow down in my toes at this point, but
not quite enough to keep the tip of my toe
from staying viable. So then I had to go back
in on March seventh and have my entire great right
(17:25):
toe removed. So you know, I was in denial about it,
stubborn about it, being a medical person who thinks she
knows everything, kind of attitude about it. And I had
to go back to the podiatrist and say, well, I
guess you were right after all. But you know, we
did give it the old college try, and she laughed
and agreed, and she said, hey, you know it was
(17:47):
worth the effort because when they take off your entire
big toe, they're taking off a big part of the
ball of your foot, which handles balance balancing. And believe me,
it's been an adventure and a journey learning how to
rebalance on nine toes instead of ten. And that's where
(18:10):
my tie tea and che gong has really been beneficial
for me.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I'm sure that helped you with your balance, getting your
balance backed, because I don't think people think, oh, okay,
so you lose your big toe, how does that affect
your balance? So I pick might think, oh, you know,
you could just walk normally, but you have to get
(18:37):
to relearn how to walk.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And much yeah, pretty well, because we talk about it.
You know, your big toe, that part that sticks out
on the insides of your legs, that that bone that
sticks out there, that is all part of your big toe.
And when they chop that off, you're losing a big
(19:01):
portion of the base of your foot, which is the
base of your balance. You know, your toe. Your foot
isn't as white as it once was. It's narrower now,
so you have less foot to balance on.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
So that explains why my son's friend who had a
sew imputation, that's why I see him have trouble walking.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
You can tell him.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
You know, it's been seven weeks since my amputation surgery,
since the second one, and I still have a little
white limp in my gate. But trust me, I practice
walking every day consciously, mindfully going, you know, putting my
(19:52):
weight through properly, and being very mindful of how my
foot mechanics are doing, how I'm moving properly. And it
does take some brain retraining, it does. But again since
I've been practicing tai chi and chiyong for so long,
it's kind of second nature to me.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Balance well. For people who.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Have not taken tai chi or the other one chee kwon,
do they go for physical therapy.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
To get their balance. I have in home physical therapy
twice a week, and the PT person says, wow, your
balance is great. I said, well, good, let's work on
strengthening my right leg because I've been gimping around walking
unevenly for the past two years and my right leg
(20:55):
is a lot weaker than my left leg. So that's
what I've been focused on in my PT. But you know,
people just starting out or lead very sedentary lifestyles and
don't aren't very active and don't get up in rock much,
they would be good to have pets that includes an
(21:16):
extensive balance portion to it as well. And there's all
kinds of simple little exercises that can be done. I'm
gearing up to doing some more YouTube videos to show
some of these exercises. But you know, first things first,
and that means being the care receiver and continuing the
(21:40):
care of my foot until my incision is completely closed.
And it's for the most part is, but there's still
one little tiny area that might possibly open up again
if it got traumatized. So I'm being extra careful still
for you know, another month. Although I was told today
(22:02):
that I can actually go out and start doing my
outdoor jobs again, which thrills me. No end, I can't
believe it because I've been cooped up in my home.
I have spring fever and cabin fever.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah, you are an outdoors first and you like working outdoors.
How can someone go about picking a doctor.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
To make questions? Betsy?
Speaker 1 (22:33):
You know, but dere told you mentioned interventional cardiologist.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
What is that?
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Ron? Well, let me back up just a minute, and
here's another reason why if you have PAD, it can
be a big learning curve to begin with. Uh, there's
actually four different medical specialties that treat pads. The first
one and most often heard of, is a vascular surgeon. Well,
(23:04):
surgeons like to cut you open. Then there is good
old interventional radiology, which has been around for decades and decades,
and they can they do amazing procedures, including some lower
(23:24):
limb interventions. And then after interventional radiology was booming, their
other sub specialties split off from it, including like neuro imaging,
and UH, interventional cardiology was was kind of born out
(23:51):
of interventional radiology, and an interventional cardiologist intervenes instead of
cutting you open and doing bypasses, and the way they
intervene is through these UH procedures that are like you
remember that old movie called The Fantastic Voyage where a
(24:12):
bunch of scientists were shrunk down, miniaturized and injected into
the blood vessel of a human. Well, it's it's an old,
old classic, it's an old anyway. That's kind of what
interventional cardiology is about. Because they take the tiny, tiny, tiny,
(24:33):
tiny guide wires and they insert them under floro under
real time imaging into your blood vessel, and then they
they use some contrast medium and then they follow the
contrasts along and they can see where any blockages are.
(24:55):
And that procedure is called an angiogram. And from the
if you've had an angiogram, they'll tell you, well, you
don't have any blockages, or you're starting to get a
blockage here, or you're totally occluded here and here and
here and here. And that was my case. I was
a mess. And they proceeded to clear out these blockages
(25:20):
by using these little miniature guide wires and then they
could do after ectomies. It's called where they kind of
laser roto router out the plaque build up on the
inside of your blood vessel. Imagine a small blood vessel
with this little, tiny, tiny laser thing burning away plaque
(25:43):
inside of a blood vessel. It's amazing, but it works.
And honestly, I went first to a vascular surgeon after
I had a step placement and I had a complete
(26:04):
vein mapping done, and I said, look, I want the
worst case scenario. And so the vascular surgeon said, well,
you're a hard case. You don't have any good, viable
other veins we could pull to use as a bypass
to go around this blockage here and that blockage there.
And so they tried and said no, we couldn't even
(26:24):
get access in. We had to stop up near your
inside your semeral artery near my thigh. That's how blocked.
I was up in my thigh and he told me
that my choices were to live with the pain or
have an above knee amputation. Well, I'm like, well, I'll
(26:51):
get back to you on that doc. And so then
I later asked them, well, what other Are there any
other doctors you know, I mean this is a teaching
research hospital. Is there any one else I might be
able to see who could help me? And crickets. This
vascular surgeon didn't even bother to tell me about interventional
cardiologists or vascular medicine or interventional radiologists who might be
(27:13):
able to help me. No, no, no, you know how
I found out me a medical person. I found out
I found out, oddly enough, through my relationships and networking
in dementia care partnering. And this woman named Daisy Vesk
(27:34):
who's a big time dementia care advocate. Her husband has
peripheral artery disease, and she sent me a message one
day and said, hey, why don't you join this group
Peripheral Artery Disease Support on Facebook? And so I did,
and I was amazed because the woman who founded this group,
(27:56):
her name is Kim McNicholas, and she's absolutely so passionate
about saving people's limbs. She's off and up in the
middle of the night talking with doctors in the er
who are ready to chop some poor person's leg off,
trying to say stop, wait, there's a doctor in town
that can treat this without such drastic measures as amputating
(28:20):
this person's leg. And so that's how I found the
two interventional cardiologists who have since saved me from an
abovenee amputation. It's absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Well, you pointed out something very interesting and important, Marcia,
and that is how important it is for us to
share our information and knowledge with each other to help
support one another. And how important support groups aren't for information,
(28:56):
for advocacy and support, just supporting each other. It's very
important no matter what you were support you you were
looking for, you know, whatever group, either it's caregiving or
PAD group or any group, it's so important for people
(29:19):
to share information to help others.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
You've hit the nail right on the.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Head, absolutely, And I've been saying this for a decade,
for years ago in the beginning of dementia child adventures
with my wife Kaydana. Yes, and honestly, all of the
tools and lessons I learned and dementia caregiving have helped
(29:48):
me through my present post dementia journey into PAD. And
that lesson today is the lesson of not the care give,
but being the lesson of the care receiver, learning how
how to receive care. How do we get good care
(30:09):
in this day and age. It means being your own advocate,
listening to other people's stories, doing some research, getting some
support from support groups on Facebook, to support from your doctors,
getting your doctors to intercommunicate with each other, regardless of
(30:29):
their special fields, because again, you know, socialists, they only
focus on one little area of the body, and sometimes
they forget that it's the whole package deal and the
whole thing works running together as one whole system. And
so case in point, that's why I had my interventional
cardiology talk directly with my pediatrists about what was going
(30:53):
on until they could come to a consensus about just
how much of my coast should be chopped off. And
we don't learn this stuff without asking for help. And
I don't know why it is that some of the
best caregivers I know are the worst at receiving help
(31:17):
or asking for help. I don't know what causes that.
I just don't understand. And that's that's why I continue
to say, share your story. You know I'm posting. I've
been posting for I don't know, maybe a year or
two now, health updates on my Facebook page. And it's
(31:37):
not to get sympathy or anything like that. It's exactly
wore story, hoping that some of the information I provide
will give some education and support to other people who
might not even have a clue that they have pad
that might be looking at a month a year down
(31:59):
the road having a leg amputato because they didn't pay
attention to the earlier signs.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yes, and that's why it's important.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Like people think, oh, you know, people might judge someone
for telling their stories, sharing their experiences, but I know
personally that I share my experiences to help other people
so they don't make the same mistakes that I made,
and maybe they can learn from my experience. And I
(32:32):
learned from hearing other stories. I learned so much in
caregiving groups when I was hungry and thirsty for knowledge
and to know that I wasn't alone, and.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
I was just immediately when I saw you, Marsha.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I know I said that some shows before, I said,
I have got to know this woman.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Marsha was ahead of her time.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I'm ahead of my time, and yes, I will to
our own morn.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I guess I.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Will, because folks, we were the pioneers. And I said
it before and I will say it we were doing things,
saying things long before anyone else. And I'm just grateful
to you, Marcia, and I always will be for sharing
your story, for being so open and honest. And by
(33:32):
the way, folks Marcia and daydonad, I learned about the
happy Place, And yes I did think Marshall was a
little cuckoos for us. How can you be happy and
your spouse is dying from Alzheimer's or will die? And
you know I had learned on my own, but Marsha
was right. You can find happiness along with the sadness.
(33:56):
And you know you're teaching people about PAD.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
How important is that people don't know about it? They
really don't.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
And now people can know the resources will be in
the blog that you can.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Look for.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
It amazes you can. You can ask one hundred random
people on the street, do you know anybody who's had
a heart attack? People go, yeah, yeask them you know
anybody's had a stroke? They say sure, And you ask
do you know anybody who has pa D? The most
(34:42):
common answer is what's that? What's that? And the reason
why it's is because it's underdiagnosed, it's misdiagnosed. It's often
but you go to the doctor. Yet your hip hurts
and they go, oh, well you're ba out, you know,
let's send you to an ortho guy. Or your knees hurt,
(35:06):
or you know, oh you have cramps in your legs. Oh,
we'll work it out, or you know, they just blow
off these initial symptoms. And uh, that's why it's so
important that I urge people that when you see your
primary doctor, please take off your shoes and socks and
have your doctor look at your feet and touch them.
(35:28):
Are they cold? Do they have weird? Are they numb?
Do they kingle? All these or symptoms and we blow
them off and say, oh, well, you know, it's just
you know, I'm getting older, or oh it's just my
back acting up, or my hip, or oh my knee,
and all the the whole time, it could be peripheral
(35:49):
artery disease. And meanwhile, these people are getting all these
other back surgeries and hip replacements done and all along
it could have been a blood vessel blockage.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
That's yeah, that's very helpful information. Uh you were a smoker, Marcia,
You're smoking have anything to do with this situation of having.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Pad listen, you know, Uh, here's a weird thing. People
with diabetes and kidney problems often get pads. Well, I
don't have diabetes and my kidney function is great. So
what's what caused my pad? Well, I'll tell you smoking
(36:34):
and drinking for forty years of my life, smoking and drinking,
and plus the fact that I just have cement for bloody,
you know. So I have to keep my cholesterol under control.
I have to watch my diet, I have to exercise,
I have to pay it. I have to keep my
feet clean. I have to touch them and look at them
(36:55):
every day.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
I have to pay attention to what my bodies tell me.
And this support group was so instrumental in helping save
my limb I can't. I can't give enough praise to
Ken McNicholas. And she's the CEO of a nonprofit called
(37:22):
The Waytomhart dot org and you can go on that
page you can find the Legs Savor hotline phone number.
If you have any of those symptoms, you can call
eight three three PA d LEGS and the people that
(37:43):
answer will help direct you to a qualified doctor in
your area who will help intervene, hopefully before you reach
the stage of an amputation. And she also won the
(38:03):
best Female Podcast of the Year for twenty twenty five,
I believe, or maybe it was twenty twenty four, but
I just recently heard it announced. So she's a phenomenal woman.
She's very passionate about PAD and I strongly urge anybody
who has any kind of question of a symptom to
(38:27):
reach out to the Global PAD Association, which is the
same thing as the Way Toomyheart dot org, and they
will be more than happy to help. Honestly, I can't
tell you even if it's the middle of the night.
I know Kim has taking phone calls in the middle
of the night to help someone in an er not
(38:49):
have their leg amputated. So that is very amazing.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
That is that's great information, very important information to know
because a lot of people they don't hear too much
about PAD in the news. I know about it because I,
you know, worked as a nurse and I coworker. And
this is going back thirty years ago. She was diabetic,
(39:14):
a heavy smoker, and she had severe PAD, and you know,
it's very sad, you know, in a way, to lose
a limb, you know, to lose your your toe, you
know foot, that's hard to you know, it's just a readjustment.
(39:37):
My son's friend who is diabetic and has heart disease,
lost his toe I think a year or two ago,
and he's a young man in his forties. And you know,
we had to listen to our bodies, Martion, And you
brought up that very good point with that, because our bodies,
when we have pain, it's telling us something. We need
(40:00):
to listen exactly, don't have.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
The time we blow it off and say, oh, suck
it up, push through, blah blah blah. And now our
bodies are sending pain signals for a.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Reason, absolutely, and we need to pay attention. And folks,
if your doctor will now listen to you, then go
get another one. Get another doctor, get another opinion.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Even a third or fourth opinion. It's like what you exactly,
go get a third or fourth opinion, even because it
could save your limb. And let me tell you a
few fun facts about pads that most people don't know.
Did you know that PAD kills more people than most
common cancers combine, more than breast cancer, prostate cancer, call
(40:50):
and cancer, all the main cancers combined. PAD kills more people, well,
those cancers combined. Yes, and one out of five people
over the age of sixty we'll get PAD, and it's
getting diagnosed at a younger and younger age. I suspect
(41:11):
largely in part to our diet and to our sedentary lifestyle.
The best exercise of all for PAD. Believe it or not,
it seems kind of counterintuitive when you're in such pain,
but the best exercise for PAD is walking. Walking is
the very best exercise you can do.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
That's good to know too. Walking is a great exercise.
They even recommended that when man had got diagnosed with
early onset. They said, walking exercise is the best thing
you could do.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Yeah, GayDonna had diabetes, and you know, I could always
tell when her sugar would go up because she'd get
at and weird, and so I'd say, hey, let's just
go take a walk. And, honest to god, a ten
minute walk. We'd check her sugar before the walk, and
the way we'd check it after a ten minute walk,
and it would have dropped like eighty points for sugar level.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
That's just.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
It's amazing. It's very good cardiovascular, and it's especially good
at growing these You know, our our bodies are so amazing.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Our bloods ups.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Are like this vast highway with all these little country
roads in them, and like if if the if there's
a traffic jam in one area and traffic stops, well,
your body builds these collateral blood vessels, offshoots new blood
vessels to carry the blood around the blockage. And the
(42:52):
way that these collateral blood vessels are grown is through walking, walking, walking, walking,
walking till it hurt, resting a couple of minutes, rubbing
your legs or whatever, and then walking some more, walking, walking, walking.
It suggested that you walk. Oh, you know, they's say
ten thousand steps a day, but you know, even if
(43:15):
you're just walking fifteen or thirty minutes a day, it
will change your whole life. It will give you more energy,
it'll give you more confidence because it helps with your balance.
And when when you're not afraid of falling, you're more confident.
When you're more confident, you just feel better. And it's
(43:35):
as simple as you're walking fifteen, fifteen thirty minutes a day.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
That is a great advice. And the older people get
they do start to have balance issues, and that's why
it's important to mattain your core strength with exercise and
with what you do.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Marisia which is getting more were popular.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
The tai chi, Yes, tich is wonderful, the balance, because
the movements are so slow. You know, it's harder to
move slowly than it is to move quickly.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
It really is.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
I mean even try just picking up your right legs
slowly and moving it, lifting your knee up high and
moving it out sideways while standing. Doing that slow, you
might even feel wobbly on your other leg because you're
not used to it. But if you do it fast while,
it's easy. So that's why taichi is so good. It's
(44:42):
the slow movements combined with proper breathing and the mindfulness,
the focus upon which we we put upon our breathing
and our proper movements. And that's why tai chi and
chi gone are so good for the body and the soul.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Yes, learning that's coming out more.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
I think I saw something about it in the art magazine.
I know I've seen about yoga, but they you're I'm
saying much more about tai chi than I've ever had before.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
And uh, the chi chigan they pronouncement, Yes you did.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Chigg You know, that's becoming more and more popular, and
why not take a class get it cleared? Up with
your doctor first, just to make sure. I know, in
the senior center or my community center in town, I
think they're teaching uh classes in that I know yoga, but.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
It could very be well be the same class I'm
certified to teach, which is called tai chi for arthritis
and Paul.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
And that's so important. You know, you read.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
A lot, you know, I have the art magazine, and
you read a lot about you know, as people get older,
and I'm sixty seven, maintaining your core strength and maintaining
your balance. And I have issues now with my neck.
I've had it for a very long time. And the
(46:28):
neurologist said, Betsy, you have to exercise your neck every
day for the rest of your life if you don't
want to have surgery.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Well that's all that took. Marcia. I saw I had
spacked off. I did.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
I slacked off, folks, And he told me that, And
now I'm back to doing I'm going to physical therapy,
but I'm back to doing my neck exercises every day,
the strength of my neck, because that's the only thing
I can do. I can't change my bones, but I
can change them, you know, get the muscles. And my
(47:02):
next stronger to help support my cervical vertebrate. And yeah,
I mean, do what you can, and we always should
do what we can do to improve our health before
(47:23):
a crisis happens. And I know if you're yeah, especially
if you're a caregiver, you know that Marsia, we put
it off, we put it off, and you really need
to take care of you. Even if you were a caregiver,
you have to take care of yourself.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
You know.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
Some of the looking at that on my caregiving journey
from today, I think, you know, some of the most
simplest things would have been the most beneficial to me
if I had just taken the time to do them.
And the two most simple beneficial things to help our health,
(48:05):
in my opinion, are diet and exercise. Diet and exercise,
eat real food, and keep on moving, keep on keeping on.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yes, yes, that's that is for sure.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Last year, I can't even remember the guy's name. There's
a medical doctor. They both were medical doctors, and I've
got the name of the book. But they said that
diet helps can help prevent some dimensions because we run
a good diet, and of course you know there is
(48:48):
hereditarian things to run in your families.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
But do what you can to fight that.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
You know, neat a good diet, healthy diet, and exercise
to help prevent diabetes, which will help prevent kidney disease,
which helps prevent you know, it just goes on and on.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
It's like dementia which helps prevent you know, pa D.
Just diet, exercise, simple basic things to eat, real food,
do real exercise. Pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
That is, yes, yes, that is a great advice.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
Well, as we wrap up here, Marcia, how can people
connect with you.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
Easy enough? I'm on Facebook. My name is Marcia m
A r C I A burr b U r R
and I'm the Marshall bird that has a picture of
Rosie the Riveter but it says we can be it
instead of we can do it. So that's me On Facebook,
my Wallace public I post videos that I've made over
(49:56):
the years. I post thoughts about, uh, just different things
I think about and remember, and I presently I'm sharing
my journey dealing with pa D. You can also find
me on YouTube. I have a channel that's called Marcia Cares.
(50:21):
That's a good way to reach out to me. Feel
free to send me a message on Facebook anytime. I'll
get back to you whenever. And I'd like to lead
one last thought about something coming up that I'm planning
with Ken Nicholas and the Waytomyheart dot Org. September is
(50:45):
National Peripheral Artery Disease Month, and we're gonna do a
little contest thing called Rock Your Walk. And this was
my idea. But the idea is that we're going to
(51:05):
be selling little rock painting tips and people can paint
rocks with the PAD hotline number on it or the
hashtag PAD help on it, and they can plant these
rocks around in high trafficked areas like your primary doctor's office,
(51:30):
or the drug store, or just you know, at a
local park, and the rocks found the most, the rocks
found in the most populated areas, will win a little prize.
We have different contests running the whole month. One each
week we'll have little YouTube videos and uh, it's all
(51:53):
about getting awareness out about PAD and what you can
do to help prevent having and an amputation, what you
can do to save life and limb And so look
forward to the month of September. We'll be gearing up
this contest, maybe a couple months before putting the word
out so you can buy your rock painting kids and
(52:16):
start painting them and it's just called rock your Walk.
It'll be a flashtag rock your.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Walk, Rock your Rock.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Yeah, w rock your Walk.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Ock your Rock. I like that. Well, thank you so much,
Marsha Burfer.
Speaker 1 (52:39):
Sharing your story and informing the audience about pads very important.
All the resources will be in the blog, and information
about Marcia and her YouTube channel Marcia Cares will be
in the blog that Genie White is the station and
as your rights. Thank you Genie, and Genie produces the show,
(53:03):
and I want to thank everyone for listening. Please share
the show to help other people. That's what we're here
for is to help you, So please share the show.
Maybe you know someone that has PAD, maybe you know
someone who has symptoms, maybe you have it yourself. And
(53:25):
the information that will be in the blog is very
helpful and it can really change someone's life. Sharing stories,
sharing information is vital, and that's why it's important to
share information and share.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
My show so good.
Speaker 1 (53:46):
I want to help as many people as possible and
I can only do it if you will share the show.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
So I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
And Johnny with Betsy is for free to subscribe to
if you don't are ready on Spotify, Freaker, Amazon Music
to name just a few places where you could hear it.
And you want to thank William Coldwell, who's CEO of
Passional Roll Talk Radio Network, who makes us all possible.
And as I always say, you could follow me on
(54:17):
Facebook Betsy E.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Worzel.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
W or Zel and I have a support group passiontag
kick Alzheimer's ass movement in the world where you could
be anything. Folks, Please be kind and shine. You're life
right because we need it now more than ever before.
Until chat with you again, be safe. This is Betsy Worzel.
(54:41):
You're a host of Chinning with Betsy on Passional Roll
Talk Radio Network, a subsidiary of Global Media Network llc B.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
Buy now.
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