Home is where her heart is: Kaitlin's story

Motivated by love

Kaitlin Gregory doesn't remember anything about the events of December 15, 2023. In the days leading up to that Friday, she had been nursing a sore throat. She got a rapid strep test; it was negative. But by the end of the week, her condition had worsened severely. Her husband Matt rushed her to the ED at Bryn Mawr Hospital, and within 30 minutes, she coded on the table.

"From the impact of my heart stopping, I had three strokes," says Kaitlin, who has pieced together the details from Matt and her doctors. "They admitted me to the ICU immediately, and did surgery on my throat to drain the strep infection. I went septic from strep throat."

Kaitlin, who had no history of chronic sore throats or heart issues, went into Streptococcal Toxic Shock Syndrome (STSS), a life-threatening infection caused by Group A strep bacteria that releases toxins into the body, leading to organ failure and shock. To increase blood flow to her heart and other major organs, she was transferred to Lankenau Medical Center and put on ECMO, a life-support system that acts as an artificial heart and lungs, pumping and oxygenating blood outside the body to remove carbon dioxide. She was also put on high doses of vasopressors, which constrict blood vessels and, combined with ECMO, can obstruct blood flow to the extremities, causing severe infections or gangrene that may necessitate amputation.

Kaitlin was medevaced to Jefferson Hospital, where both of her legs were amputated below the knee, as were the tips of five fingers and both thumbs. She required ventilation, tracheostomy, a feeding tube, and skin grafts on the tops of her thighs and other parts of her body where the vasopressors had caused peeling and blistering. This was the reality she woke up to when she slowly regained consciousness after being in a medically induced coma for almost a month.

"I learned about my trauma after everyone else. Matt, my parents, my in-laws, my brother, my godmother, my uncle — they had already been dealing with the worst of it," recalls Kaitlin, 40. "I was told so many different things: that I'd never wake up, that I'd never talk again, that I'd never be able to eat on my own. That I had less than a 10 percent chance of surviving. I was just so thankful that I was alive. I decided that I wasn't going to just sit around. I was like, 'Tell me what I have to do.'"

To prepare Kaitlin for what had happened, Matt had downloaded photos from the internet of women who were bilateral amputees, wearing nice clothes and shoes, walking normally, unassisted, generally living their lives. "I was telling her, 'Hey, you can do this, we can do this,'" Matt shares. "I was trying to help in any way I could."

A goal worth chasing

Throughout her stay in the hospital, Kaitlin had one major motivation: to get home to her children, Declan and Finlay, who were 11 and 7, respectively, at the time.

"I missed my daughter's eighth birthday, I missed Christmas," she shares. "That was a big realization, to just be in the hospital and not be there with them. I'm a stay-at-home mom, you know, my home is my office, it's where I work. And to hear about everything I had missed, that was really difficult."

Matt consulted some child psychiatrists for advice on how to best tell their children about Kaitlin's condition. The kids weren't able to see their mom for almost six weeks after she was first admitted to the hospital, while she was still in the ICU.

"We try to be as open as we can with them, but thankfully my mom stayed here the entire time I was sick," says Kaitlin, whose extended family was a huge support system during her illness. "She kind of took over the role of being mom with school, homework, all of their activities, which provided consistency and allowed Matt to visit me pretty much every day."

"I was just so thankful that I was alive. I decided that I wasn't going to just sit around. I was like, 'tell me what I have to do,'" explains Kaitlin.

After almost two months at Jefferson, Kaitlin was finally stable enough to be transferred to Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital. "We'd heard great things about Bryn Mawr Rehab, and my surgeon recommended it," she says.

When she first arrived, Kaitlin still had the tracheostomy and feeding tubes, and her skin grafts and amputation incisions continued to heal. In addition to her multiple amputations, she was still recovering from multiple strokes and a significant cardiac event.

"We see such complex cases," says Dr. Rajendra S. Padhye, Kaitlin's attending physician during her first inpatient stay. "We have a fantastic team and a multidisciplinary approach. Physical therapy worked on her mobility and transfers, given her bilateral below-knee amputations, and occupational therapy worked with self-care and fine motor activities, given that she also lost some digits in bilateral hands. Speech therapy worked on her speech and her swallowing, given she had a tracheostomy tube, and the psychologist provided support. We also have very skilled rehab nurses and wound care nurses who attended to her.

"This is a catastrophic event for anyone to go through, but to Kaitlin's credit, she carried herself very gracefully throughout her inpatient rehab stay and was even brave enough to put up a smile at times. She had a very supportive family, including her husband, parents and in-laws, and young kids, who motivated her to get better."

Grit with a smile

Kaitlin accomplished a lot during her month-long stay. She had to relearn basic functions, such as swallowing and drinking water, as well as new behaviors, like how to use the wheelchair and transfer from the bed to the chair, which was complicated by her missing digits and the fact that her hands were still healing.

"Initially, we spent a lot of time on amputee education, including wound prevention, contracture prevention, desensitization, strength, range of motion and mobility, including transfers and wheelchair propulsion," explains Ashley Wollman, Kaitlin's inpatient physical therapist at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital. "She had to overcome a lot of pain just to fully participate in therapies. I could see in her face how sensitive her limbs were when she was moving, but she never let it get in the way of putting in her best effort. She never used her pain as an excuse not to try something. She was working on so many things in such a short time to be able to return home to her family."

Through recreational and occupational therapy, Kaitlin also got to do fun, more creative activities like cooking a meal, baking a cake with her kids for her brother's birthday, making flower crowns or candles in the greenhouse and drawing, which appealed to the artist in her. "I was able to apply the skills I was relearning," says the former mural artist, who worked as a preschool teacher before her children were born.

Kaitlin was discharged from Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital on March 20 and returned home to recover for a few months until her incisions had healed enough for her to begin training with the prostheses. Her house had to be reconfigured to accommodate her new limitations, which included moving her bedroom to the first floor. All the while, she was making preparations to walk again.

"The doctors asked me, 'Do you plan to walk?' And I was like, 'Absolutely!' So I had to make sure that my posture was correct and that my legs were straight when they were healing so that all of the fittings would work."

These legs were made for walking

In June 2024, Kaitlin returned for a second inpatient stint at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital for intensive prosthetic training. During her two-week stay, she learned everything from how to put on her new legs and make sure they fit correctly to how to get in and out of a car and walk up and down stairs. "The therapists there were so wonderful," she says. "They would, in this MacGyver-type way, really think about what you needed and they'd be like, 'Okay, I figured out how you can use this to do this.'"

"Kaitlin's prosthetic training stay was almost pure fun," adds Ashley. "It was all so positive. She had high-reaching goals, which she set for herself, and she hit every one of them because of her incredible attitude and unwillingness to let this highly complex medical journey slow her down or stop her from living the life she wanted."

Kaitlin continued outpatient therapy from August through November 2024 and no longer requires an assistive device to walk. By the time she was discharged, she was moving at a pace where she could keep up with her family and friends. She now wears her prosthetics for up to 12 hours per day, and, in her words, popping them on and off is "like second nature." And she's back to doing the things she loves most: seeing her kids off to school, cooking big meals, hanging out with her dogs, watching TV at night with her husband, spending time outdoors, all of the things that make her feel like she has her life back. In March, she even volunteered to paint sets for a production of Madagascar Jr. at Declan and Finlay's school.

"It's been great to have a paintbrush in my hands again, and to see my kids be so happy to see that," says Kaitlin, whose spirit and drive are as fiery as her red hair.

"I want to live my life to the best of my abilities, and I want to prove my statistics wrong. If you put in the work, it's going to happen, and if it doesn't, it means you've got to find another way to make yourself happy," says Kaitlin.

"Recently, I got to go to a clinic where they put running blades on my prosthetics, and I got to run around, and that felt amazing," she adds. "I got to bounce up and down and play soccer, I used to be a big soccer player. It felt so good to feel that joy and excitement again. I just want to keep moving, in any way I can."

Next steps

Learn more about rehabilitation care at Main Line Health

Learn more about amputee treatment and rehab

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