Amputated foot gets its own Instagram account

A woman who convinced doctors to allow her to keep her amputated foot has set up an Instagram account on its behalf.

25-year-old Kristi Loyall was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer in her right foot and doctors told her the only solution was to have it amputated.

"My first reaction was to make a joke of it," she tells Newsbeat. "So I was like 'Hey can I have my foot back.'"

"Then I realised I actually wanted my foot back."

Although her doctors said the request was "unusual," they obliged and a month after the operation she was handed back her body part in a biohazard bag.

Kristi, from Yukon in Oklahoma, explains: "It was really really weird. I moved my toes and my mum was really grossed out by the fact that I can move my toes."

Despite having had serious surgery Kristi was able to see the funny side of what she had been through.

"At that point I was emotionally separated from it," she says.

"I had a lot of time to deal with it at home so at that moment I was excited about starting to make a joke out of the situation."

The Instagram idea came from a friend but Kristi loved it. She sent the bones off to get cleaned up, whitened and wired together.

She called the Instagram account One Foot Wander and her first post was a picture of her amputated limb with the skeleton at the end of it, alongside the caption "Reunited".

Now she regularly posts photos of it in unusual places - on the beach, the golf course, in a graveyard and on the Christmas tree.

"I don't have money to travel that much so it just goes with me wherever I go and if I see something or have an idea of something funny I just take a picture of it."

"Usually I keep it in a shoe box in my back pack. I think most people when they see me taking pictures of it, I don't think they think it's real."

Her favourite image so far is a photo of her foot with her dog - a brave picture to take given most dogs like chewing on a bone.

"She's very interested in it," Kristi says. "If we leave it on a table she will try and walk away with it."

As followers creep up on the foot's Instagram account Kristi is now cancer free and is hoping to take it on even more exciting adventures.

"I have a scan every three months to make sure it doesn't come back...but right now my scans are all clear and I don't have any cancer at all."

"Eventually I hope to travel the world with my foot. I've never been on an aeroplane. I don't know how that will work."

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