Brave grandmother proves anything is possible
“YOU’RE a young gran,” Barbara Catterson’s granddaughter Alex told her recently.
It was the greatest compliment she could receive from the 15-year-old.
Barbara may be 66, but in winter she rocks a mini skirt, tights and boots. Summer brings knee-length skirts and heeled sandals.
“I love my heels,” Barbara, from Barrhead, near Glasgow, laughs. “They’re a symbol that there’s life after amputation.”
That’s the message Barbara shares as a volunteer for The National Lottery supported charity Finding Your Feet, which helps people who have lost limbs.
She knows there’ll be tough times, but there’s also light at the end of the tunnel. Barbara’s life changed in June 2011.
“Driving, I turned a corner and found myself head-on with a white van,” she says.
“It was going too fast. The world shuddered – then I took a deep breath. I was alive… just a bit of cramp in my legs.”
Firefighters sliced off the top of her car to release her and laid her on a stretcher. She was airlifted to Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.
“This is a lot of bother for cramp,” she thought. When a scan showed her right hip, knee and heel were broken, she was shocked.
The next day, doctors rebuilt her hip with four plates and nine pins. Six weeks later, Barbara returned home. But despite months of physio, her foot refused to heal.
“I had to wear a splint to keep it stable and these horrible stompy shoes. For a stilettos girl, that was tough.”
Three years on, with no improvement, Barbara met an orthopaedic surgeon.
“I can break your heel and fix it,” he said. “Or amputate. But breaking and fixing is just delaying the inevitable, you’ll need it amputated in a few years anyway.”
“I was horrified,” Barbara says. “‘Can I wear heels with an artificial leg?’ I asked.
“The surgeon burst out laughing. He said that the prosthetic would be moulded to the shape of my left leg with a flexible, moving foot. Yes, I could wear heels!”
Six weeks later, Barbara was in surgery. “Waking up missing my lower right leg and foot – I didn’t let myself think about it,” she remembers.
“I focused on physio and walking out in the heels I’d given the prosthetic team to use as a mould for my artificial foot.”
Barbara didn’t cry until three years later. “I was running on nerves,” she says. “But when I retired and split with my partner, the tears came and didn’t stop.”
A few months earlier, Barbara had picked up a leaflet about the National Lottery-funded Finding Your Feet and attended a couple of coffee mornings. Feeling awkward, she didn’t go back.
“But Connie from the charity kept inviting me. ‘Thank you, I’m busy,’ I said.
“In truth, I was lying in bed watching television, desperately depressed.
“Then Connie said: ‘If you won’t meet me, I’ll visit you.’ So I dragged myself out.
“The first thing Connie said was: ‘We can get you help.’ Then and there she made me an appointment with a counsellor.
“Stubborn, I went to my first therapy session determined not to share anything. By the end, I’d told Michelle my life story.
“I returned to the Finding Your Feet meetings and enjoyed them.
“And I began bowling weekly. Then in 2018, I became a peer support volunteer.”
Barbara visits people in hospital who have had amputations, and she’s at the end of the phone for anyone feeling uncertain.
“I don’t tell people losing a limb is a bed of roses. But I promise that it gets better.”
National Lottery players support health projects near you, like Finding Your Feet, which helps individuals and their families affected by amputation or limb absence through sports and social activities.
The National Lottery is also proud to sponsor The Sun’s Who Cares Wins Awards, which shine a light on Britain’s healthcare heroes, from frontline NHS staff to people who go above and beyond.
After our chat, Barbara’s off to another visit, in her favourite beige-heeled sandals.
“These heels are proof that anything’s possible,” she laughs.
Healing in heels – that’s Barbara and, thanks to her and National Lottery players, hundreds of people are finding their feet.