Kerry Lee

On Camera: Kerry Lee talks about the joy of walking.
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You don't have to know Kerry Lee very long to suspect she keeps a packed suitcase in her closet and lists her current address as Any Airport, U.S.A. "I've always traveled," she says. "At every opportunity, I travel."

So it's no surprise that on Dec. 26, 1996, Kerry and Bill Lee were traveling on an Arkansas highway, headed back to Florida after a Christmas visit with family.

At 8:49 a.m. on that return trip, Kerry was already thinking about getting home, repacking and leaving on her next trip. This one would be to the Florida Keys for a family birthday party and New Year's Eve to dance the night away.

Then, at 8:50 ...

"An oncoming car crossed the double yellow," says Kerry. "My husband swerved right to protect me from the head-on collision. He took the impact at 55 miles an hour."

The steel-bending crash rammed the front seat on top of the back seat. The Lees' car flipped, rolled over several times and came to a stop on its roof. Kerry and her husband were trapped, suspended upside down, and breathing fumes from leaking gasoline. "Talk to me," Kerry said to her husband. "You have to talk to tell me you're OK."

Kerry and Bill were not OK, but they were survivors. "The 19-year-old driver in the other car and his father were killed," says Kerry. "Paramedics cut us out of the wreck and took us to a nearby hospital in Dumas for evaluation. Bill had broken limbs. I had a fractured pelvis and collarbone. My left wrist was broken; my left foot and ankle were sprained; and my right ankle was crushed."

The hospital was not a trauma center. Kerry and Bill were put in separate ambulances and sent to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center in Little Rock. "We couldn't go by helicopter because a fog had rolled in," says Kerry. "By the time we got to Little Rock, my entire leg was so swollen, it was a week before the surgeons could begin repairing anything. Then they weren't sure what they could save. I remember waking up afterwards and asking my mom if I still had a leg."

The Last Dance

"I had so many reasons to be grateful," says Kerry. "My leg would be fine, and the doctors were able to put my ankle back together with pins and screws. The procedure was called aerial reduction internal fixation. Bill and I spent three months in the hospital, sharing the same room and wearing the same unisex clothes."

In March 1997, Kerry and Bill went home to Florida. "Everyone said I was lucky to walk away from a collision like that," she says. "And I was, except for the fact that I couldn't walk. After a year of physical therapy, my ankle was worse, and the pain was constant."

Out of desperation, Kerry agreed to ankle fusion. "This one would fuse my subtalar joint with coral," she says. "At the time, coral was considered the closest matter to human bone. The fusion would prevent my ankle from bending forward, backward or sideways. It was supposed to eliminate the pain. But it didn't work." Instead, Kerry was wheelchair-bound. "This would be my life," she says.

For the next five years, Kerry struggled with crutches, walkers and wheelchairs. "I was only in my 30s. I'd been a normal person who did normal things. I could even walk all over Disney. Now I couldn't do anything without pain, without aid or without someone to do it for me. I couldn't even get off the toilet alone." No matter how many different therapies or surgeries Kerry tried, the results were always the same. She was dependent, disabled and demoralized.

No one would have denied Kerry the right to feel sorry for herself. No one, that is, but Kerry. "I came to the realization that I hadn't lost my husband or my life that December day," she says. "So whatever else I lost must not have been mine to begin with. I was still here and Bill was still here, and there had to be a reason. Now it was up to me to find out why."

The woman who once lived on the go now went in search of second opinions. But her choices were grim: amputate the leg from the knee down or live in a wheelchair on painkillers.

A Matter of Opinion

"I went to a local doctor in Melbourne," Kerry says. "He said pain pills were not the answer, and before it came to amputation, it might be possible to take a bone from my hip and use it to rebuild my ankle. The procedure was complicated and extensive. He wanted me to see James DeOrio, an orthopedic surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. My doctor had done his fellowship under Dr. DeOrio. He said if anyone can do it, this guy is it."

Kerry packed her suitcase and went to Jacksonville.

Dr. DeOrio studied Kerry's tests and X-rays. "He said to me, 'No one knows your body the way you do. What's up? Tell me your story. How has this changed your life? What are your goals?' When I told him about the amputation, he looked at me like I was a little crazy."

Kerry's ill fortune had turned fortuitous. "Dr. DeOrio told me it hurt him to watch me try to walk. His exact words were, 'I have to fix that.'"

He also wanted to discuss the injury and solutions with a group of peers. With Kerry's consent, Dr. DeOrio presented her case to a conference of orthopedic surgeons in Chicago. He called her a few days later. "All 30 surgeons at the conference had agreed," Kerry says. "No amputation."

Team Spirit

"Dr. DeOrio's only interest was helping me walk," Kerry says. "He wanted input and options from the other surgeons and specialists. His attitude was what is the best thing we can do to make you happy and give you what you need and want."

To ensure quality care for each patient, Mayo specialists in hand surgery, adult joint reconstruction, bone and soft-tissue tumors, sports medicine and foot and ankle problems team up with physicians in other specialties to evaluate and consider the options.

Multispecialty team medicine is a defining strength at Mayo Clinic. Just as parts of the human body work together to function as a whole, Mayo Clinic is a group practice of 342 specialists and scientists who work together, pool their knowledge and often use new treatments not available elsewhere.

To restore Kerry's mobility and eliminate her pain, Mayo would use one of those new procedures — an ankle replacement.

"When I asked Dr. DeOrio how he would get an ankle, he said they would make one," Kerry says.

Independence Day

The road to recovery would not be swift or direct. First, Kerry was admitted to St. Luke's Hospital. To prepare her ankle to accept an artificial joint and alleviate some of the pain, the 5-year-old coral fusion had to be completely cleaned out, replaced in the correct position and held there with hardware.

Then Kerry had to wait and heal, while the new ankle was designed.

"Dr. DeOrio's assistant, Ashley Vickers, called me," says Kerry. "I'll never forget her voice on the phone. I think she was as excited as I was. She said he was ready to replace my ankle. I screamed so loud, she probably suffered hearing loss."

On July 3, 2002, it took about an hour and a half to undo nearly six years of disability caused by that fateful collision. Kerry awoke to words that were music to her ears. "Dr. DeOrio said if all went well, I'd be able to walk," she says. "And four weeks after surgery, I was walking without crutches, without a cane, without pain and without therapy. He told me I could do it, and I did."

Six months later, Kerry pulled her suitcase out of the closet.

"Bill wanted to celebrate my full recovery, so he came home with two tickets for a three-week photo safari in Africa. When I asked Dr. DeOrio what precautions I should take, he said don't get bitten by a lion — a lion bite would not be good. I think he was as excited about my trip as I was. He had seen me at my absolute worst, and now he was seeing me at my absolute best."

On doctor's orders, Kerry avoided the lions, but she did take on the tallest curtain of water in the world, Victoria Falls. "I climbed down eight stories of the slippery rock slope like nothing had ever happened," she says.

A few months later, she repacked to tour Poland. In December 2003, Kerry is taking her suitcase to Germany, and after that, a trip around the world. Yet, despite her exotic itineraries, Kerry says her most satisfying trip was to the pedicurist. "I was so excited," she says. "After all those years of being unable to walk, I had a callus on my right foot. I was normal again."

Here's to Life

"Mayo did more than repair my ankle," Kerry says. "They restored my dignity.

"Until the accident, I never understood why God hadn't given us children. But I know now. They would have been in that back seat. He spared us the worst loss of all."

The accident was a horrific experience, Kerry says, but one she would not give back. "A lot of people don't get that, and I'm glad they don't," Kerry says. "But nearly losing everything has been the greatest gift. It taught me spiritually. It taught me emotionally. It taught me to be so grateful for every day.

"Bill and I are moving to the Northeast soon, and I want to go back to school to study theology. God had a reason for keeping me here, and it will be revealed. I'm going to find out why."

So the suitcase in the closet is being packed again, possibly for the greatest journey of all.

Bon voyage, Kerry.