Quadruple amputee is starting from scratch

POST FALLS, Idaho — Sitting in the living room of her family's Post Falls home, Kim Houx speaks softly and directly.

Her face is etched with the subtle lines of a woman who has smiled many great smiles.

It's something Kim, 53, still does despite the fact that her hands and feet were amputated less than six months ago.

"I'm just so happy that I'm still here," Kim said.

Punctuating her sentences with fluttering eyelids, she tilts her head back slightly, almost closing her eyes, emphasizing the deep emotional connection she feels to her words.

It is an effective form of body language for one who can no longer use hand gestures to make a point.

The quadruple amputations became necessary last fall after an infection severely damaged her heart, requiring emergency surgery.

Kim's medical odyssey began on a Monday, she and her doctors think, with a routine trip to the dentist for a simple procedure, a crown.

Kim said they don't know for sure that's where the infection came from, but it's what medical professionals told her they suspect.

Within days, she began feeling less and less like herself.

"My whole body just ached. By the weekend I could barely walk. I was dizzy," Kim said.

By Sunday, Scott, her husband of 28 years, put her in the car and rushed her to Kootenai Medical Center. That's the last thing Kim remembers of her first critical weeks in the hospital.

But Scott remembers. He was there by her side through it all.

"It's just amazing that she was able to pull through it," Scott said.

Dr. Robert Burnett, Kim's cardio-thoracic surgeon, said it's amazing she made it to the hospital at all.

"It's a well-known phenomena, the connection between dental work and endocarditis, which is an infection of the lining of the heart, particularly valves that have a structural abnormality," Burnett said.

Kim had a heart murmur, something she never told the dentist. She didn't realize she should.

"To me, I didn't have a heart disease or a problem," Kim said.