After living with unrelenting pain in his leg for more than five years after he was shot while protecting others during the Aurora theater shooting, Joshua Nowlan had his left leg amputated below the knee in January.
Dr. John Schwappach, the trauma surgeon who saved Nowlan’s leg the night of the shooting, worked with him to find other solutions before agreeing to the amputation. Nowlan also got opinions from other doctors.
From opioids to cannabis oil and from injections to acupuncture, Nowlan’s tried anything and everything to get relief. He hates the way pain medication makes him feel. And nothing else has worked for long.
“I think for the last four years, we’ve hoped that the pain would go away and it simply hasn’t,” Schwappach said.
The Jan. 5 amputation was Nowlan’s eighth surgery since the shooting. When he saw his leg after the surgery, he started to cry and then smiled.
“It’s done. It’s really done,” he said. “I’m happy now. I’m really happy. These are tears of joy.”
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