A cancer survivor from Oklahoma City has made the best of a bad situation in an interesting way.
KOKH reported that Kristi Loyall, a survivor of cancer, had problems with her right foot for six years.
"I kept going to the neurologist five or six more times he kept telling me it was a B-12 deficiency, so I kind of gave up on that until last summer I noticed a lump on the inside of my foot," Loyall said.
According to a GoFundMe page set up on Loyall's behalf, she was diagnosed with cancer in 2015 after seeing several doctors.
KTRK reported that although the cancer did not spread, Loyall was told that it was so aggressive her foot had to be amputated.
On April 22, she underwent surgery for amputation. Afterward, she had a unique request.
"I asked, 'Can I have my foot back?'" Loyall said. "He thought I was kidding, but then he's like, 'I think that you can, but not too many people ask for body parts back.'"
She was serious.
"Straight from pathology they took it out of the formalin bucket and put it in a red bio hazard bag and gave it to me," she told KOKH, adding that she went to a specialty business and in a couple of months, had a custom clean skeleton of her amputated foot.
Loyall took things a step further.
"One of my main coping mechanisms is to make a joke of everything," she said. "I made the Instagram, and I like to take pictures of the foot."
The idea came from a friend's cousin. Loyall's account, @onefootwander, has over 6,000 followers. Snapshots show Loyall posing her foot in various situations, including in the sand at a gold course, in an old shoe and on a gas pedal with the caption, "Just like old times."
"At first, I thought my life was over," she said, "but after I got my foot back, I've been more positive. I was pessimistic, but this changed my attitude about life."
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