Her long road back
By Andrea Mineo
When you spend time with Lisa Longo, her personality pulls you in very quickly.
The cliché being 'full of life' applies to her. The details of
her dire health story fall away, because she carries herself
with an aspect of joy. Ms. Longo was born in the Bronx
and raised in Syosset. She spent 30 years working in
Manhattan in advertising sales, so she knows the beat of
the Long Island Rail Road and the New York City Subway
well. She says she was never one to run to the doctor
over little aches and pains, but in 2012 she found herself
in Plainview Hospital and nothing about her stay was
little. She had osteomyelitis, an infection in the bone of
her foot. That infection began to make its way through
other parts of her body, and as a result her recovery would
continue until this year.
"Five years ago, I seriously thought and felt that I
was going to die," Ms. Longo said. "Aside from the
osteomyelitis, I had sepsis, developed kidney damage
and was an out-of-control diabetic. And at the time the
best case for me would have been losing my leg and foot
by amputation."
While she was in Plainview Hospital, Ms. Longo's kidneys
began to shut down, and she had to be transfused. Once
the sepsis and foot infection were treated and under
control, she met John Hoina, DPM, associate medical
director at the Hyperbaric and Wound Care Center at
Plainview Hospital.
"Lisa came in with osteomyelitis, a heel ulcer which we
operated on, removing some of the heel bone because
it was diseased," Dr. Hoina explained. "It started to heal,
we used hyperbaric medicine, wound vacs and other
modalities and then it reopened. So we resected more
bone. We also needed to do some vascular work to get
more blood flow to the area, and then we started to
see good closure on her wound. Still, her weight was a
problem so we referred her for bariatric surgery. Since that
surgery, she has lost approximately 70 pounds. The wound
is almost closed. She's functioning. She's walking on it,
and she has both of her legs."
Wound care
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