Weaver’s struggle with diabetes has interesting twist
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John Weaver poses with the prosthetic leg he lost in the Cartecay River four years ago; a diver from Tennessee found it downstream recently. Of the tattoo of a cross on his arm, he said there were “no doubts” God has helped him on his journey, and he wants it to be a witness. “That’s the reason I put it there,” he said.
John Weaver was 13 when diagnosed with juvenile “brittle” diabetes.
“I didn’t know what it was,” he said of the prognosis that includes disruption of daily life. “They explained it to me, but still, when you just turn a teenager you don’t really comprehend it. In my head, it was like I was going to live till I was 30 and that’d be it. So I figured I’m going to party it up and that’s what I did through high school. I was a rebel.”
His initial diabetes level at diagnosis was 1,800.
“If I hadn’t had it for a long time before then, they told me that (level) would have probably killed me,” he said.
Weaver was asked how having diabetes since childhood has impacted him.
“It’s pretty much impacted everything,” he replied.
However, it hasn’t stopped him from living a full life. He and his wife Donna — they were high-school sweethearts — have three grown children, Sarah Nelloms, Ali McArthur and son Cameron. Weaver is also a whitewater enthusiast, and has an interesting tale about a prosthetic leg he lost while kayaking four years ago being found earlier this year.
As a teenager, though, his life appeared to hold neither promise nor purpose. A 1992 graduate of Gilmer High School, Weaver was no stranger to Principal Lex Rainey’s office.
“At one time, he said to me I was going to dig ditches for a living,” he remembered. “And that’s what I first did when I got out of high school when I went to work for (a utility company)! Mr. Rainey told me one day, John, you’re a big influence in this school — you’re just the wrong influence. But after I graduated, I respected that man more than anything. He goes out of his way to shake my hand when he sees me. He was just trying to push me to do better, and I was being rebellious. No matter how hard I gave it to him, he gave it back to me! He’s a good man.”
At the utility company, Weaver worked his way up to being an operator, but felt he was being “held back” from further promotion because of his diabetes that also kept him from attaining a commercial driver’s license.
“That kinda hindered me,” he said. “I was diabetic, and just trying to make it on my own. I let pride get in the way and said I’ll show them, I’ll quit.”
Weaver worked for two other smaller utility contractors, then at a big-box store making $8 an hour before getting on at a friend’s cabinet-making company. As the diabetes worsened he began having problems with his feet, and at his wife’s family reunion in Las Vegas around 2001, he either got bitten by a spider or stepped on something unawares.
“My foot swole up and they put me in the hospital for two weeks to receive antibiotics,” he recalled. “As a diabetic, I can handle stress very well mentally, but it affects me physically. The problems with my feet started with the left foot then went to the right foot. You bandage one up, and you put more pressure on that one and it causes a callous. You wouldn’t think much of a callous, but bacteria grows up underneath it just like when it turns from a blister.”
The first amputation
After taking time off to heal, Weaver — who said he “can’t stand not working” — got hired as a chaperone at a boarding school for troubled teens in Fannin County. Again, too much standing was damaging to his feet. He developed a blister and a toe got infected wearing flip-flops — which he was wearing while showering to prevent infection — and it had to be amputated.
“I’ve got neuropathy,” he said. “I could step on a nail in a piece of lumber and wouldn’t know it until the lumber was flopping around with me. It’s a blessing and a curse because I can’t feel it, but it’s a good thing when it does get hurt. When my doctor does light surgeries, he doesn’t even put me under (anesthesia). It’s kinda disheartening hearing the bone saw, though … I kinda knew from the git-go that once they start taking one (amputating), it’s a continuous thing.”
Weaver left his job at the boarding school because he was having to miss so much work. He struggled with applying for disability after his doctors recommended it.
“It was the worst thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “I understand it now, but it was like biting the bullet — you feel like a man when you’re working, and then they take that away from you. There were times like I felt I could work, you know? But the thing is you can feel good for three months, and then you’re down for six months. It took me forever to accept the fact that it was money I’d paid in (to the Social Security system).”
In 2015, surgeons amputated the lower part of his left leg after asking him if he wanted to continue an antibiotics regimen in an effort to keep it.
“I said just take it (off),” he said. “I think I thought about that for about five minutes! I love my leg — but if I kept it, it would have killed me.”
While trying to get disability — it took five years — and going through surgeries and not working, Weaver became depressed.
“I’d be in the hospital watching the news and seeing those boys (troops) over in Iraq, I said to myself, you know what? I ain’t got it that bad at all,” he said. “Be happy with what you do have, and quit complaining. I had to turn it around and get a good attitude.”
Weaver credits his friends, and especially his wife of 27 years, for “picking him up.”
“She has to put up with all my crap,” he said of Donna. “When I do hurt and can’t sleep and bark at her for no reason, she’s stronger. She’s taken care of me when a lot of women would have just left.”
These days, Weaver hangs out and volunteers at Ellijay River Outfitters, a tubing operation on the Cartecay River.
‘The river ate my leg’
John Weaver lost his prosthetic leg four years ago while kayaking, accompanied by his son and his son’s friend who were tubing. They came up on a downed tree in the Cartecay, and when the boys drug the kayak under the tree instead of over it after Weaver exited, the leg was gone.
“Before we left, my wife told me, ‘You’re gonna lose that leg,’” he recalled. “I said, ‘No, I ain’t!’ I got out of the kayak so they could get it around the tree and my leg wasn’t on. I said I hope it’s in the kayak. When I got back in, it wasn’t there. I said, ‘Boys, we’re never going to make it to Stegall (Mill, site of rapids and the takeout).’ Cameron said, ‘Momma’s gonna be mad!’ and I said, “I know, let’s get out up here and I’ll call her.’ I said, ‘Hey, baby, can you come down here and get us?’ and she said yes, and I said, ‘Oh yeah, I lost my leg.’”
Weaver had to crawl out of the river, and when Donna arrived, she asked what he was going to do — they had tickets for a concert the very next day. He collected some bits and pieces of prostheses from an amputee friend, but when he put them together, it ended up looking like a “Frankenstein leg.” Donna pushed him in to the concert in his wheelchair.
“That was a hard lesson to learn — an expensive lesson too,” he confessed. “I told everybody, ‘The river ate my leg!’”
Four years later, Nick Henderson of Birchwood, Tenn. was pursuing a hobby in the Cartecay, diving underwater to see what he could find. He came across a most interesting find — a prosthetic leg. It just so happened Weaver was downstream picking up some tubers at the Stegall Mill takeout. Someone told him a prosthetic had just been found.
Prior to that, a social media post months before stated someone had found a prosthetic leg in the Coosawattee River (formed after the Cartecay and Ellijay rivers merge), but when Weaver saw a photo he knew it wasn’t his.
“But it was good to know I’m not the only one that’s lost a leg in the river!” he said with a laugh.
A bus driver with Cartecay River Experience, another local tubing outfitter, said, “I know exactly whose leg that is — it’s John Boy’s leg!”
Weaver was “in awe” at the discovery.
“I was amazed when I first saw it,” he said. “Four years! It went probably less than a mile (downstream) from where I lost it, even with the storms and all (that cause flooding). Nick said he found it caught between two rocks, and a crawfish had made a nest in it.”
Henderson, who cleans up river bottoms and tries to return valuables to those who’ve lost them, called finding the prosthetic appendage “the weirdest thing.”
“I said, ‘Wow, that looks like a leg!’” he said. “It was kinda dark down there, and I couldn’t see 100 percent, but when I got it to the top, I knew exactly what it was. I yelled at my wife and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I found a leg!’ With it being such an unusual item, I thought surely someone has reported losing a leg. We went to the other tubing place (Cartecay Experience) and said, ‘This is a weird question, but did anyone lose a leg?’ At first, everybody said no, but then the bus driver said, ‘This may sound crazy, but yes, I do!’ And he led us to him.”
Philip Clark feels “extremely lucky” he can call John Weaver his friend.
“He never complains about anything and always tries to give support in anything for everybody,” he said. “He’s been through a lot, but you would never know it just by talking to him. There are very few people that actually care about the well-being of others and he is definitely one of those people. He’s full of laughter, smiles and stories, and it’s never a dull moment whether you’re having a bite to eat, a conversation or floating the river losing a leg!
“You’re glad you got to spend time with him no matter what the reason may be.”
Cheyenne Carver, of Ellijay River Outfitters, said Weaver remains “upbeat and keeps going no matter what.”
“John never lets his disability get him down or keep him from doing the things he loves,” she said. “He is an inspiration to all those around him, and we are so appreciative to him and for all he does for us.”
Weaver’s leg stump has changed in four years, and the lost-and-found prosthetic no longer fits. He said he’ll likely donate it for someone else to use who can have it refitted.