KASSON, Minn. — Sierra Diller has experienced chronic pain for more than half of her life. It began when she was a student at Kasson-Mantorville Elementary School, when constant pain in her right foot caused her to limp.
“A teacher saw me limping and told my mom,” Diller, now 28, said. “We saw so many doctors from Mayo to Olmsted (Medical Center) to private practices all over the Rochester area, really trying to find some sort of answer.”
Sierra Diller, formerly of Kasson, Minn., shows off her temporary prosthetic after having her foot amputated in December 2023. (Courtesy of Sierra Diller)
Ultimately, Diller and her family learned that she had a hemangioma, a non-cancerous tumor, sandwiched between the bones and the tendons in her right foot.
“I ended up having surgery to try and remove the tumor,” Diller said. “Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful because the tumor is too intertwined with the rest of the things in my foot — the tendons, the veins, the nerves, everything. The only way to get it out was to basically resect the entire arch of my foot, which would leave me with no functionality at all.”
As the 7-inch incision on the sole of her foot healed, Diller had to relearn how to walk. A few years later, Diller’s providers tried sclerotherapy injections to try to dissolve the blood vessels in the tumor, but the treatment didn’t work.
“We didn’t really have any other options,” Diller said. “I kind of just went on with life, just expecting that foot pain was going to be my future.”
And Diller did live with that pain for several years. To accommodate the tumor, her foot bones had to shift, like how a person’s fingers arch around a computer mouse. This caused a cascade of chronic pain up her right leg, affecting her ankle, hip and lower back.
“I did grow up on a (dairy) farm in Kasson … and my foot did become a challenge,” Diller said. “At the end of the day, on a farm, the job is to get the job done. It doesn’t matter what you got to do to get there, it just has to get done. So, it was challenging growing up with the pain but, you know, we made it work.”
Saying goodbye
But the pain worsened. After attending Winona State University for her undergraduate degree, Diller moved to Florida for graduate school. During her first year there, Diller’s commute between her apartment, the bus stop and campus “caught up with my foot super fast.” One day, she reached a breaking point.
“I was walking back home from class and I couldn’t take the pain,” she said. “I actually remember I was sobbing it hurt so bad. I sat down on a bench. I was using my socks as tissues because I didn’t have anything, and I was sobbing on the phone to my now-wife and was like, ‘Hey, can you come get me? I just can’t do this anymore.’”
That’s when she pursued a different treatment option: saying goodbye to her foot completely.
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“It’s hard for people to grasp elective amputation, as I can imagine,” she said. “Because some people think it’s very extreme, which comes from a place of not understanding what constant pain is, or (what) chronic pain feels like.”
It took a few years to get there — Diller had a hard time finding a doctor in Florida or in Indianapolis, where she lives now, who took her request for elective amputation seriously.
“It was so dismissed because it wasn’t cancerous. I wasn’t going to die imminently from whatever was in my foot,” Diller said. “The doctor I’m with now was very willing to listen and he said, ‘We’ll put that as a last resort, but I want to try some things, too.’”
After two rounds of sclerotherapy injections and another surgery failed, amputation was on the table.
Inspired to share
That’s when Diller decided to share her journey with others, taking inspiration from Jo Beckwith, known as “Footless Jo,” a YouTuber who posts videos about her elective amputation and how she navigates life with a prosthetic foot.
“She kind of encouraged me to be able to keep pushing myself, just keep trying,” Diller said. “Because of her and the encouragement she gave me, even though she didn’t know I existed, she made me want to share my story, too.”
Starting last year, Diller has been documenting her amputation journey on the social media platform TikTok, with her videos gathering thousands of views and comments. After having her right foot amputated in December 2023, she posted a TikTok from before the surgery showing her right foot covered with farewell messages written in marker and a “cut here” line around her ankle:
And just like that. It’s gone!!! Amputee Day 1! Handling recover like a champ! #fypシ #fyp #foot #footbreakup #pain #endchronicpain #amputee #amputation #preamputation
♬ Cut It (feat. Young Dolph) [Challenge Version] – O.T. Genasis
It went viral, reaching more than 5 million users.
“Those videos kind of blew up, with my very positive reaction to not having a foot,” Diller said. “Which, I woke up and I was just elated, so excited, and so I think that positivity went very far.”
‘Hopalong Sierra’
Sierra Diller, a Kasson, Minn., native who now lives in Indianapolis, poses for a photo with her wife, Alli Diller, after Sierra’s foot amputation. Sierra has gotten millions of views on her TikTok videos about her December 2023 foot amputation. (Courtesy of Sierra Diller)
In the weeks following her surgery, Diller (who goes by Hopalong Sierra on TikTok) has posted videos about getting her prosthetic leg, using the adaptive foot pedal that lets her drive a car with her left foot and experiencing phantom pain — real pain that feels as if it’s coming from a missing limb. “Why did you choose amputation?” is the most common question Diller gets from viewers.
“I’ve also had people reach out privately that are going through maybe not the same situation, but they may be facing the idea of elective amputation and they just don’t know how to talk to their families about it,” Diller said. “I try and give them my best support and how I handled my situation.”
Now that her right foot — and the tumor within it — is gone, Diller said she’s now able to go about her life without being constantly aware of her foot.
“Don’t get me wrong, I still have to consider how I’m going to get from point A to point B without a foot,” said Diller, who’s been using crutches as she recovers. “But there’s no more foot pain, and if I would have told that to sixth-grade me, when I was going through so much pain all the time, that there is going to be a day where you won’t have any more pain, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
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