'Life is not over'; Amputee helps others handle the challenge.

• Author: Boynton, Donna
• Position: Local

Byline: Donna Boynton

LANCASTER -- Rose-Marie Bissonnette should have been preparing for retirement in the fall of 1996, but instead she was contemplating life as an amputee.

On the eve of her ninth wedding anniversary, on Oct. 19, 1996, the car Mrs. Bissonnette was driving collided with a truck on Route 13 in Brookline, New Hampshire. The car was crushed under the truck, with her inside. Practically every bone in the left side of her body was broken. She wasn't expected to survive.

"I was so badly crushed, I was literally bleeding out from all of my broken bones. I had a broken pelvis, broken ribs, a severed right ankle, broken arm, broken wrist,'' Mrs. Bissonnette recalled. "I had multiple, multiple injuries and they tried to save my left leg. I had either years of reconstructive surgery ahead of me with no guarantee that I would walk again, or amputation.''

As she considered her options, she asked to speak with someone about what life is like as amputee. To her surprise, there were no resources available.

But Mrs. Bissonnette, 69, whose left leg was amputated below the knee, has changed that. In 2004, she founded what is known today as the New England Amputee Association, a nonprofit organization that is a resource for amputees and caregivers looking for support and information.

To date, the New England Amputee Association, which was originally called Central Mass Limb Loss Support Group, has 250 on its rolls, and receives requests for information from families, patients, doctors and hospitals across the region. Mrs. Bissonnette has met with Boston Marathon survivors to help them as they deal with limb loss.

Mrs. Bissonnette fields the phone calls herself from her Lancaster home, and most requests usually fall into two categories: a spouse or child who is looking for help because they've noticed a change in their loved one's personality after an amputation; or a new amputee who is having trouble adjusting physically or emotionally.

The New England Amputee Association just started a new branch at Kent Hospital in Rhode Island and is working to have at least one branch in every New England state.

The impetus for Mrs. Bissonnette to start the association was not just her accident, but the tragedy that followed three months after her amputation -- the unexpected death of her husband from undiagnosed cancer.

"I wanted to give back,'' Mrs. Bissonnette said. "I was having difficulty dealing with how I had lost my husband, but I lived through...