Episode 4: Lisa’s Story | From Soldier to Mum

In this episode, Lisa shares her story of service, motherhood, injury and rebuilding her life. 

From serving in the Army to facing the realities of chronic pain and limb loss, she speaks honestly about identity, resilience and what it means to be a mum through life-changing challenges. 

It’s a powerful conversation that shows the human story behind the uniform.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Hey my lovelies, I'm Harry Boxnell. Thank you for downloading Human Not Ray, the podcast from Plasma. In this edition of Human Not Heroic, Telling the Reality, the Everyday, and the How of Life for our limless and sight-effective veterans, we celebrate the Wonder Woman in life, our mums, because Sunday, the 15th of March, is Mother's Day. To mark the occasion, I was transported north to Donny Doncaster by Magical Digital Zoom to meet with former Army Medic, Blasma Trustee, Super Mama 3, and above the knee amputee, Lisa Johnston. As is traditional, we started at the beginning. We're going to start at the beginning. How is it in Sunny Donny? It's lovely to see you. We're talking about Mother's Day. We're celebrating Mother's Day. And it is appropriate that as you are a trustee of Blessner, and also mother of three, talk to you about being a loneliness. And I'd like to go back to that day when your legendary happened in Order Shot on the assault course. Can you just talk us through what actually happened to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So I did an assault course on in Aldershot and I had to jump over a six-foot wall. And as I jumped over, when I landed, I felt a sharp pain in my ankle. I was like, oof, ooh, something's not quite right. So I did the the bog standard thing. I told the PTI, who told you the bog standard thing of drink more water, come and see me at the end. So that's what we did. Saw him at the end when you have a lineup. Anybody sustained any injuries now stepped forward. I stepped forward, I told him about it, and he sent me to the med centre.

SPEAKER_05 2:17

Let's put this in context. You served 17 years in the Royal Only Medical Course. So you are yourself a medic. Yes. You used something wasn't right at the beginning, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, so um after the initial, normally after seven days, an injury kind of like settles down. Um, but it wasn't settling. It it just it felt the same. Um, and if anything, it was kind of getting worse. So when I went back to the med centre, I said, look, something's not quite right. They sent you for tests, I did x-rays, um, and everything came back clear and normal.

SPEAKER_05 2:53

Always does.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

And I yeah, always does. And they said there's nothing wrong. And and um over weeks that kept happening. And for um, every time they said there's nothing physically wrong with you, I started to think, shit, it's all in here. If there's nothing physically wrong with me, then what is going on?

SPEAKER_05 3:12

What was going on?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Um unbeknown to me at the time, I actually had developed CRPS, complex regional pain syndrome. That's uh a neurological pain condition that amplifies pain. So when you stub your toe on the edge of your bed in the morning, that act pain that dies down. But for me, when I did the sort course, that act pain that never went away and slowly got stronger and stronger. My nerves were sending my brain messages to say that it's um, yeah, although it's a little a little injury, it's over-exaggerating the pain that I was experiencing. And CRPS can be cured if you catch it early enough within three months, it can be cured, no problems with desensitizing and and therapies and all that kind of stuff. Um, three to six months, it's 50-50. Six months plus, that's it, it's more managing it because your brain's rewired itself and it's just uh you have to manage a condition for the rest of your life. Now I didn't get my diagnosis until about seven and a half, eight months later. So by the time I had found out what was wrong, I Googled it like you normally do, and it it was saying stuff like swelling, tick, um, pain, tick, discoloration, tick. It was like reading a little check seat of what I had. And then I went down to the treatment, and that's when I found out that those time frames, treatment for me by then was wasn't on the on the on the agenda, it wouldn't couldn't happen.

SPEAKER_05 4:54

So you're offered a mercy family, you know, you're married, one officer, royal logistics called there it is, driving grippy loris, you know, all the stuff keeping the army going. You knew you had to lose a leg. Your mother of three baby boys, okay, all teenagers, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

All teenagers now, yeah. Well, at the time, because I was in so much pain, uh, I I just to be fair, I wanted the leg gone. Because in my in my head, my leg was the problem, and the problem was causing me so much pain, it messes me remind. So, in my eyes, if I got rid of the problem, then the solution will be there itself. So for me, quite early on, it was it has to it had to go. It had to go because I couldn't live on like the way I was living.

SPEAKER_05 5:44

I mean, you medics are renowned for your stoicism, your you're bravering your courage, and and there you are, and you are faced with the fact that you've got to take your leg off. I mean, how did that affect you?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

It was when you when you're in that much pain and you're on meds to kind of help the pain, but they don't really help the pain, they're just foggy memory and the foggy it foggy brain. Um I got I got to such low how do I describe it? I was I was in so much pain that I wasn't I wasn't functioning properly, and there was there were three times where I fantasized and came close to actually taking the leg off myself because I was no use to man or beast, I couldn't look after myself, let alone look look after my boys. Um because I was petrified of them hurting me, I I kind of made like an invisible circle around me that they couldn't enter. And if they did get too close, I'd be like, oh no, no, no, no, no. And I couldn't react, I couldn't control my reaction of how how I I was with my kids. So they they started calling me Monster Mummy, and they kind of stayed away from me. So I was just a person that sat in the front room that the kids ignored, and that was pretty miserable in itself.

SPEAKER_05 7:15

For you, bringing up three boys, how did it feel that you suddenly had to isolate yourself? How did they react?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Well, like I said, they saw me as just a person who sat in the front room. Um, they didn't really talk to me because I couldn't engage with them being so drugged up and have having such a foggy mind. There were two, three, and seven. So they were very young.

unknown 7:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:42

They were very young and they they really needed their mum. And they did, yeah. And how did that feel for you and that feel for them?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Well, to this day, I carry so much guilt with me because if you're a mum, your job is to teach your children, nurture your children, uh help your children grow, and at that precise time, I couldn't do any of those things. I couldn't even physically play with them because I was in that much pain. So to this day, the amount of guilt that I carry is still there. Uh so uh trying to be a mum when you're in that position yourself, it it wasn't possible. I was a burden.

SPEAKER_05 8:26

Listen, fast forward to your husband. How did he for him it must have been very difficult because he's a serviceman? We're all servicemen, we all get on with it, we all struggle through. How did he cope?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

In the early days when we were both in, um that his unit was pretty good, and he he'd go from it he'd travel from home to his unit back again, and they were they were pretty lenient with that. But when we moved up north, I was obviously on the verge of being medically discharged, and he'd done his time, so we all moved up north, and he became he had another job, he was doing communications, but because of how poorly I was, he had to take about a year out of work to look after me because I couldn't physically look after myself and I couldn't physically be a mum to the boys. Um, so he would he was the rock, he was my glue, he was the the you know my best friend who got us through that whole traumatic time, so to speak.

SPEAKER_05 9:31

Now we're through the time. When you decided that the leg had to come off, how was that?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

We were I was living from hospital appointment to hospital appointment, and in between it was like pretty much limgo. Uh we were in limbo, and um at every appointment that I'd gone to, they'd revert back to the drawing board and say, No, we'll try this, this, and this, which we'd already done in the past. So that each each time I went to a hospital appointment, it was like, oh, I was getting more downhearted, and I felt as if I wasn't being believed because for them to say there's nothing wrong with you for so long, that's why I started doubting myself. But when I had an appointment with um at Headley, we had an outside neurosurgeon come in and they had uh a clinic each month, and I was lucky enough to be put on the clinic list. And when I spoke to the the consultant, pretty much the first thing she says, she goes, Lisa, I read your case. Um I know you've been bumped to this person, this person, but I've I've read your your file, you are a perfect candidate for an amputation. So when she said this, I was like, and and she goes, I will do your surgery. And I was like, again, because I couldn't one, I couldn't retain the information, but two, I couldn't believe the words I was actually hearing because that validated myself for actually being believed that I wasn't making all this up, and for somebody to turn around and validate that, that was just a massive weight off my shoulders, and I just cried. Now I don't know if it was crying because oh my god, I'm losing my leg. I think it was crying through relief that there was a light, even a small light, at the end of this massive tunnel that just seemed to be on a desolate road to nowhere. But after that appointment, I was like, oh my god, something can be done, and this won't be the rest of my life because I wouldn't have been able to handle it.

SPEAKER_05 11:38

So there you are, you're faced with the prospect of losing your limb, and you you take you take the hard road. After it came off, was that the relief you expected?

SPEAKER_00 11:53

I didn't know what to expect, to be fair, because like I say, for two and a half years, three years, I was in this much pain, and I couldn't envision life before, and I couldn't envision life after. So when I woke up from the anesthetic um that that first day, yes, I was in pain, but it was more localized, and I could like you know, drip feed my my drug, my morphine, whatever, and it was great. But the actual the burning CRPS pain that had absolutely vanished, and I was on such a natural high that I know it had gone. It was it was an incredible feeling to wake up from an operation to whip your leg off, to be so happy, it was a bit bizarre because surely an individual shouldn't be happy about having that type of surgery. But I was, I felt so elated and relief and happy and joy and oh my god, I can't wait for what's next. All these feelings, once I woke up, were just there, and I knew this was the start of a new beginning.

SPEAKER_05 12:58

Meantime, back in the front room, the whole Johnson family is waiting there with fingers crossed and saying, How's mum? What was their reaction?

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Because I didn't like the kids coming close to me because of how much pain they possibly could have put me in, I didn't have a lot of contact with them. So when when I came home from from the hospital, it was it was a it was a summer summer's evening, it was about 10 o'clock at night, and I said to John, I said, Look, I need to hug my kids. I need I need to I need to see them. So they all come running downstairs, and I was sat on a sofa and my arms were outstretched, and they all came running towards me, and they gave me this massive, massive hug that it it took me back to when they were they were born.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

It was like having that hug for the first time all over again, and it was just it it was just it was just magical. So all that love I just tried to give into that and to that first that first hug. And um, yeah, I said look, mommy's back, mommy's home now, that still gets me, you know. Something you just can't there's no descriptive words to describe that moment, that instant that reconnection. So yeah, that was tough. Try that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:27

So we know how it was after then. So here you are now how is it with the leg every day?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

It's just come it's part of everyday life. If I have um it's very rare that I have a chair day, and if I do have a chair day, it just means I do the same stuff, but it's just in a chair and it's a little bit harder. But um, when I first got my leg, the boys thought it was incredible because I was I was I was playing games with him, I'd I'd be involved, I I became mum again, and um because my youngest Ethan is got global developmental delay, he's got he's he's really though he's physically now 13, he's probably about three or four mentally. So we did a lot of floor activities like getting the trains out, getting my cars. I always took my leg off, it was just easier, I had more freedom without it. So Charlie's favourite game was to pick up my leg and run off with it. And he's like, Mom, you can't get me. I was like, Yeah, you're right, I can't. So I kind of like pop a couple of steps to try and chase him, and obviously he'd he'd run the other way. And he thought that was a hilarious game, and it was up until a point where I was like, right, Charlie, I really need my leg back so I can, you know, start making dinner or doing this. And he's like, uh-huh, come and get me. So once I gave the mum look, I was like, right, we'll stop now. He's like, okay, mum, and you give it back to me. So that was his favourite game.

SPEAKER_05 15:54

Charlie was bullied at school. How did you deal with that?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

When I first became an amputee, I was always anxious about people looking at me, and I had to deal with that myself. So being a mum and trying to find ways of connecting to kids, you know the little cloth badges that you can get to sell you sew on your clothes. I brought a bucket load of them, and there were there were cartoon characters and superhero logos, and there were Mickey Mouse, the TARDIS, all that kind of stuff. And I I put them on my socket, gave my socket to the prosthetics, and they laminated it on. So I had all these different sockets with these badges. And when I wasn't at Headley Court and I was able to do a school run, I'd I'd drop Charlie off at the school gate. Um, the children, not so much the parents, but the kids would look at me, point, and stare. And the parents would be like, Oh no, don't do that, don't do that, don't look, don't stare. Which for me gave a negative impact to the child. So if I saw a parent and a child do that, I'd go up to them and say, No, this is okay. And I'd take off my leg and I'd it was a conversation starter, and I was like, that one's my favourite badge, that one's super girl. I said, That's me. I said, I've also got like Mickey Mouse, which one's your favourite? And then they'd point and we start a conversation. So that's how I kind of start to get over my exact anxiety about being about it out in public, and it also got me interacting with the kids. So I'd rather that happen than um a parent just shush their child because knowledge is everything, and it it's teaching the children and teaching other individuals that being different is not a bad negative thing. So, because I going back to the school run, I used to do Charlie's uh school run, pick up and drop off. A lot of his school friends noticed that I was different, and obviously, kids are nasty when that age. Uh, he started to get picked on and was like, Oh, you've got disabled mum, your mum can't do anything, your mum's cripple, and that really upset him, which upset me. And I was like, because of what's happening to me, this is affecting now my children. So I went to the school and I explained um what had happened, who I was, um, and I said, if you want, I can come to school and give a talk and let the kids know what everything about it. So one child is get stopped getting bullied, and two, again, knowledge is power. So they invited me in for a chat, and I had I had about three legs. I took all my legs in, and I had a wheelchair and stick and crutches, and I gave them a little friendly death by PowerPoint presentation about what I did as a job, how I got injured, um, what happened to a poorly leg, why it had to be chopped off, all kid friendly. And I took out some pictures that might have scared them. And they were hanging on to my every word. And the teachers were like, Oh my god, oh my god, look at them, look at them. They'd never seen a class so still and so focused and engaged on a on a guest speaker. So at the end of that, um, at the end of that little session, I we we played a couple of games. Like I asked them if they could balance, and they said, Yeah, yeah, we can balance. I was like, right, stand on one leg and balance. They could do that. I was like, now stand on one leg and balance, but close your eyes, and then kids were falling over everywhere because you know, if if you're in the shower and you're washing your hair and you close your eyes, you lose your balance, stuff like that. So after that little talk, which I did three times to the school, whenever they saw me on a school run, the children be like, Hi Charlie's mum, hi Charlie's mum, hi Charlie's mum. And there'd be this one little kid, I for I didn't know his name, but he had a sibling, and look for me in the playground, and he's like, Can I hold your leg? So every time I saw this particular child, I'd take my leg off, give it to him, and he'd hold it, and he'd be like, Wow. And that was my that was my day. And then after that, Charlie never once got bullied.

SPEAKER_05 20:16

That ticked some guts, in there.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

It it did take guts. It was something I'd never actually thought about doing was talking about. I didn't think there was a story at at all. But to explain to somebody why you're different, but you can still do stuff, but you do it your own way, you adapt to it. Yeah, it's it's quite empowering because I've said no to a lot of things that I thought I wouldn't be able to do. Like, no, I can't do that. And I thought to myself, have I tried that as an amputee? And um, I'd be like, Well, actually, I could probably give that a go. I'll give you an example. We went um, we went rock climbing, we we did uh like a butt lens or or a pontins or something like that, and Charlie's like, come come do it with me, mum. I'm like, mm-mm, I can't do it. And he's like, Mum, you could do anything. So I had a think, and I thought, do you know what? I will. So I put my leg on slightly different because the the the way my socket is I can wear it anywhere I want. So I took it to the side, and I used that leg to just stand on something, and then my actual wheel leg to move up. So it took a bit of time, but I wasn't fighting my teeth.

SPEAKER_05 22:00

And Salon Thompson. How's your dancing?

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Oh, I'm awesome at dancing. Not the one-legged hop, I am awesome at. So um if it if there's a good tune on and I'm out having a bit of a be a bit of a boogie, the leg comes off and it does go in the air, and I do wave it around. And if and if someone's on stage we're seeing a band, I will happily give my leg to them and they'll be like, okay, and dance a bit. So the leg does actually come out. It's quite quite a competition starting.

SPEAKER_05 22:29

What's your favourite one we dance to?

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Oh, there's so many. I'm I'm still standing. Uh any anything like relatable uh lyrics with missing a limb.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

You can never know what it's like. You can't like win a few.

SPEAKER_05 23:25

Now, Mother's Day's coming up. How are the Johnson family going to be celebrating Mother's Day and and their superhero mum?

SPEAKER_00 23:32

I've never been one for getting up early, so even now, when I have to get up early, it's like ugh. So, first of all, is definitely a lion. And then if they don't argue that day, that'd be me well sorted. Because they're boys, they like to have a bit of rough and tumble, they like a bit of winding each other up. If they don't wind each other up, I'll be well happy. Because to be fair, they do they do treat me like the queen that I am, um, except for when you know got homework to do or has a job that needs doing. They are told me, I think we brought them up really well. And I I think that what I've gone through for this amputation, um it's made them more kinder, more considerate, and shows more empathy. So if they see me in a wheelchair if I'm having to have a chair day, then they're extra they're extra nice and they're extra well behaved. It doesn't always work. But um no, I think Mother's Day would be having a lay-in, spending time with the boys, we'll put a film on, we might go out for lunch. I don't care as long as they wait they're well behaved and they just they they just love me. Give me a hug, I'll be happy.

SPEAKER_05 24:46

You do great things for Bresma. What inspired you to to get on board and and and do the great works you do for Breathma as a trustee and all the great things you do in terms of the extra curricular activities and so on?

SPEAKER_00 25:02

So before I became an amputee, I had a um the BSO come around and and say, look, we're Blesma, this is what we do, we're an organization that does this, and I thought, yeah, just another organization. You know, I'm not holding my breath. However, how wrong was I? It was it's it's a completely different organization that I've ever known. I mean, they they actually look after your members, they engage with you members, they put on local outreach events, so we might have a a a coffee morning one time, we might go bowl in another, might have a pub lunch. Um, so that's really nice meeting other members in my local area. So that that was always good, and I think through that and the local activities that I was like, oh my god, this is really incredible. This is this is actually really good. I'm meeting meeting like-minded people who were going through the same stuff and you can have a good old chin wag with. And the first few months of my amputation, I found that to be a bit of a bit of a lifeline because I had questions that I couldn't ask my family that they didn't know the answer to. It was only fellow amputees. And it was through blessing as well that I found my first female amputees because bles blessmas were predominantly all male. So I couldn't have a chat with somebody about getting a lip stuck in the socket or when a sanitary towel sticks to the socket, it's just womeny stuff like that. I'm a bit of an overshadower. Whereas a bloke can talk to another bloke about a bul a bolloc getting caught in his socket. I couldn't I couldn't talk about that sort of stuff because I'm a female. So that that that really, really helped. So when um when the opportunity for uh a trustee place to to open up, I was like, do you know what? Yeah, I've gained so much from Blesma I want to give back. So by becoming a trustee, this is me of helping Blesmer out and giving back to the members because if we can help a member who felt like I felt when I needed it, then that's that's a job done. That's a win. That's a massive win.

SPEAKER_05 27:18

Lisa Johnson, thank you for being human, not correct, but utterly remarkable. Have a great, great Mother's Day.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_05 27:30

Not very often made me cry. And my thanks to Lisa Johnson for being such a wonderful guest on the program. To Adam, Charlie, and Ethan. Be sure to give your mum an extra big hug on Sunday. And to all our mums wherever you are, whether it be on operations, and duty, or at home, have a great day.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

We salute you, we celebrate you, and give thanks to the video.

SPEAKER_05 27:57

To learn more about the vital work Plastma undertakes, supporting our litless with side effects investors, or to make a donation, please visit blessma.org. Do join us for the next episode when you are not road, hate the high speed. Don't I'm white, tweet the colors. Drop the light, join us drop. Two then from me, Harry Potter. Thank you for this. Available at piano1001.com, attacks.de recording. We are family, written by Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards, was performed by the Mertu Eyes Choir. With Studio Editing by Michael Siliani, this has been a gamekeeper production for Blessma, the Limless Veterans.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

We we should go out on the piss together because fun fact, I can get three pints in my leg. It just it's a conversation star. And because I'm a girl, I've blinged it up. It's got pink sparkles on it, Diamontes, you know, because of three boys and a husband, I need some pink and sparkle in my life.

SPEAKER_05 29:44

Tony Bloomfield, this is all your fault. Take care. God bless. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Fabulous.