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Boston Marathon bombing victim heads home after asking for leg to be amputated

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After months of agony, and minus part of her left leg, Boston Marathon bombing victim Rebekah DiMartino is finally going home for good.

The 27-year-old Texas woman was released Saturday from a Houston-area rehabilitation center, 12 days after having her leg amputated from the knee down.

The amputation had been her idea. And she is quite pleased to be done with the mutilated limb.

She had gone under the knife 17 times to repair grotesque damage to her leg from the April 2013 bombing attack near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Skin grafts, screws, metal plates and rods were used by surgeons to save the shattered remains, but she was never able to walk unaided and the constant, searing pain was driving her mad and ruining her life, she said.

After throwing her leg a going away party and writing it a ‘Dear John’ letter, she underwent surgery on Nov. 10 to remove the offending limb. “It’s not you,” she wrote on her leg with a black marker, “it’s me.”

The mother of a 7-year-old son, DiMartino says she wants to step forward with her life, and may even run in next year’s marathon in Boston. She can’t wait to get a prosthetic leg.

She got married in the spring, to the man who was standing next to her and her son, Noah, when the bombs went off.

Doctors say her prognosis is “great,” DiMartino said Saturday.

With News Wire Services

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