During her teens and early 20s, Kara Snyder was a healthy young woman who was in control of her Type I diabetes. In August 2002, she underwent what was supposed to be a routine surgery to have her wisdom teeth removed, and many difficulties arose from there.

She developed a dry socket from the surgery, and was admitted to a hospital in northern Ohio for dehydration and vomiting that accompanied a spike in her blood sugar levels. While there, Mrs. Snyder suffered the effects of an infiltrated IV in her hand.

“Kara was sedated and didn’t know anything was wrong until a family member came to visit the next day and found her with her right hand the size of a baseball glove and her arm swollen almost to her shoulder,” her mother-in-law JoAnne Snyder of Bellefontaine recounted.

As a result of the IV being left in her arm for several hours, Mrs. Snyder developed compartment syndrome, or the compression of nerves and blood vessels within an enclosed space, which leads to muscle and nerve damage and problems with blood flow. She was rushed to Riverside Methodist Hospitals in Columbus to save her arm and maybe even her life.

“They did immediate surgery on my right arm and removed more than 1200 cc of fluid,” Mrs. Snyder said in an e-mail. “I had to have skin grafts done and lost function of my right arm and hand. ... I had to go through physical therapy and learn how to use my arm and hand again.”

Ongoing issues

Following the surgery in Columbus, Mrs. Snyder’s health issues continued to spiral out of control during the upcoming months and years because of unregulated blood sugar levels and the compartment syndrome. She developed diabetic gastroenteropathy — a clinically serious condition that seriously hampers metabolic control — that in turn led to such microvascular complications as retinopathy and neuropathy. She also suffered from congestive heart failure, requiring three stents to be placed in her heart, along with severe depression and anxiety.

In the midst of these struggles, the Bucyrus native married in 2003 and she and her husband, Luke, moved to the Belle Center area. Then, somewhat miraculously considering her medical circumstances, Mrs. Snyder gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Madison, in December 2005.

She worked as a certified medical assistant for Maple Leaf Family & Sports Medicine for some time, but working became difficult as her health problems increased. She was diagnosed with renal failure in 2006 and started dialysis the following year.

“I felt like I had been handed a death sentence because all I had seen or heard about dialysis was always negative,” she wrote.

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