Ever since she was little, Susan Smith has felt there is something wrong with her body. Her determination to 'fix' things has twice landed her in hospital.
While most people want to change something about themselves, the image Susan has of herself has always been one without legs. She suffers from body identity integrity disorder (BIID), where sufferers want to remove one or more healthy limbs. To fulfill her dream, she tried to freeze and kill her leg with dry ice pellets so that the surgeons would amputate it afterwards.
In her first attempt, she immersed her leg in dry ice for an hour.After she discovered that she only suffered superficial wounds and no amputation was necessary, she made a second attempt, and this time she stayed in the dry ice for four hours.
The leg was hard as stone and she had third-degree burns. The pain was horrible, but still it wasn't bad enough for her leg to be amputated. Susan was so desperate that she starting thinking of a third attempt. But this time she thought that she would have to do it differently, such as perhaps putting her leg under a train so that surgeons would have nothing more than a stump to stitch up.
Her wish was finally fulfilled when the leg became so infected that there was a danger of the bacteria getting into the bloodstream and killing her. She was having so much fever that she was sleeping 24 hours a day. After nine months of agony, Susan told her GP that if she didn't see someone fast, she would take off the leg herself. Within two days she had an appointment with a different surgeon, and the amputation went without a problem, and her left leg was removed from just above the knee.
She now feels more complete after that one leg is off. Susan has always been an outgoing kind of person, but her confidence is much higher now as her body is becoming what she wants. It might sound strange, but for the first time she feels that she is able to move on and lead the life she has always wanted. In many ways she is starting again but her new life seems incredibly exciting for her.
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GuardianTags: Amputate | Leg | BIIDLabels: Health
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