After 15 Years of Crippling Pain, Woman Decides to Have Her Foot Amputated: ‘Bye B-tch’ (Exclusive)

After years of dealing with crippling pain in her feet caused by a non-cancerous tumor, Sierra Diller has finally decided to call it quits. Her solution? Amputate her right foot.

Diller, a marketing analyst, tells PEOPLE the decision came 15 years after her foot problems began. The 28-year-old Kasson, Minn., native says the pain started in 2006 when her fourth-grade teacher at Kasson Mantorville Elementary School noticed she was limping. Her teacher told her parents, who own a dairy farm, that it seemed alarming. So they took her to the doctor.

“The pain was mostly from walking or standing or really anything on my feet,” says Diller, who shared her experience on TikTok. “My foot hurt so bad. I would even tell the doctors, ‘Hey, don’t touch my foot. I’m going to kick you in the face.’

Diller spent most of her childhood going from doctor to doctor looking for answers. When she was in primary school, she was diagnosed with a massive hemangioma tumor on her right foot – which doctors said she was likely born with.

According to the National Institutes of Health, a hemangioma is a noncancerous tumor that causes pain and swelling and can limit foot function. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons explains that a hemangioma tumor occurs when small blood vessels begin to multiply at an abnormal rate and form a mass or lump. Treatment varies depending on the subtype of hemangioma. Some cases may require surgery, while others only require monitoring.

For years, Diller did her best to cope with the pain. “The bones in my foot moved around the tumor so I could walk. But the tumor itself (which is made up of tons of extra blood vessels) would fill with blood as soon as it wasn’t squeezed. It was very uncomfortable.”

“When I went to stand up,” she continues, “it would hurt because the compression between the foot and the floor was forcing all that blood out of the veins in the tumor, and it hurt all the time.”

Sierra Diller holds a prosthetic foot in preparation for a foot amputation.

Sierra Diller

In April 2008, when Diller was in sixth grade, she underwent her first surgery in hopes of regaining full mobility. However, there were complications and in the end the operation failed. “It had a lot of negative effects, and then it just healed wrong. I was on crutches for a year. So I missed everything,” says Diller, who underwent sclerotherapy injections the following year for pain, which also proved unsuccessful.

“I was like, you know what, this is my life,” says Diller, who graduated from high school and attended Winona State University in Minn. “So I grew up with foot pain all my life.”

X-ray of a tumor in Sierra Diller’s foot.

Sierra Diller

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After graduating from college, Diller moved to Florida with her then-girlfriend Alli (the two married in March 2020) to attend graduate school at Florida State University. Then things took a turn for the worse. Walking to class proved incredibly painful, leaving Diller struggling to continue studying.

“Everything came together at once,” she says. “I couldn’t attend classes and eventually decided to drop out.”

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Sierra Diller after having her right foot amputated on December 8th.

Sierra Diller

In 2019, she moved to Westfield, Ind., just outside of Indianapolis, where she and Alli now live. Two years later, she underwent two more rounds of sclerotherapy injections, both of which failed to relieve the pain. Another operation in 2022 also proved unsuccessful – ultimately causing further problems.

Diller says it got to the point where she started thinking about amputating her foot. “I would joke with my doctors and say, ‘Can we just stop it?'” she recalls. “Most people would give me such a wild look as if you wanted to cut off your foot?”

But Diller made it clear to her doctors that this was exactly what she wanted to do — and after discussing what the surgery and recovery would involve, they agreed to proceed. “When I found out I was going to have the procedure, I told my family member by member,” Diller recalls. “I was educated about what I was saying and confident in my decision.”

“They are all she’s been extremely supportive and I’m proud that I’ve come through all of this with the strength, courage and perseverance I’ve shown so far,” she continues. “Every friend or former colleague I’ve ever met in my life has had to see what my foot has done my life and everyone was aware of how badly I wanted my foot to just be cut off so I could go on.”

Ahead of the surgery, Diller posted videos on TikTok and GoFundMe detailing her decision to have the surgery. The last TikTok she posted before the surgery showed her covering her foot in farewell messages.

“Get out of here,” read one of the messages she wrote on her foot. “Hi bitch,” was another, right in the middle of her foot. The video went viral with 4.2 million views.

“It was very therapeutic for me to be able to say, ‘This is it,'” says Diller, who underwent the procedure on Dec. 8. “Even when I was going into surgery, I had so many nurses and doctors stop and read some of the notes on my foot and laugh, so it was good. It was just that last, ‘Thanks for ruining me life, but goodbye.'”

Since the surgery, Diller says her recovery is going well. “I felt a little pain here and there, but honestly, it’s nothing compared to what it was like before my foot was cut off,” she says. “It’s been a constant thing the whole time. The new pain I’m having, it’s something I’m learning to live with, it’s part of the amputated leg.”

“I know it will go away or get better with time,” she adds, “and I know my life will be a lot better now than it was before.”

Sierra Diller leaves the hospital after having her foot amputated on December 8th.

Sierra Diller

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On January 11, Diller will receive a temporary prosthesis and will begin the process of learning to stand and walk independently, with the help of physical therapy.

“Now I can get my life back,” says Diller, who wants to learn to ski one day. “I’m ready to live. Everyone I tell is always shocked, but I say, ‘No, no, no!’ They look at it as a sad, ‘oh no, poor you’ thing. To me, it’s not like that.”

“It’s like I’m moving on,” she adds. “I’m done with sad things. I’m done with holding back—no more!”

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Source: HIS Education