BOSTON -- More than 18 million Americans have diabetes, and every year, thousands of diabetics face amputations because complications cause foot ulcers that just don't heal.

A Medford, Mass., woman went down that path in March, but her story has a very different ending, reported WCVB-TV in Boston.

Lillie Brown, a children's songwriter and author, loves happy endings, but her own life story took a turn for the worse. It started with a sound she'll never forget.

"I got up one morning, went into my kitchen, and I heard a loud crack," Brown said. "And I looked down and said, 'Gee, what did I step on?'"

She didn't step on anything, but she'd broken a major bone in the center of her foot. Numbness from diabetes hid the pain. But the more serious problem came from the cast put on to help her heal.

"It rubbed the bottom of my foot and a blister came. And from that little blister, things just took off," Brown said.

"She had about a 4- or 5-centimeter ulceration, which was about the size of a flattened baseball," said Dr. Ray Murano, of Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Medford.

When it wouldn't heal, doctors wanted to amputate.

"It was very, very frightening for me, with the possibility of losing my foot," Brown said.

Lucky for her, Murano had a different approach.

"I think we can go in there, cut out all the diseased tissue, take out the portion of bone that had fractured through the bottom portion of her foot, cover this with a skin graft, and we used two 5-millimeter stiming pins," Murano said.

And heal it did, thanks to two surgeries and a team of doctors.

"We had vascular surgery, infectious disease, internal medicine, we had podiatric surgery. And she had a great outcome because of it," Murano said.

Brown is now singing their praises.