 Good morning, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome to a day in the life of an amputee with chronic pain and three dogs and two cats. That was perfect timing cakes. Who works from home. A lot of you guys have requested a day in the life video and I wanted to deliver it to you today. I felt like today would be a good day to do this video because plants have already changed this morning due to a migraine that I worked up with, woke up with, I can't talk. Plants have already changed today due to a migraine that I woke up with at 6 a.m. I was supposed to go to a Toastmasters meeting, which is like a public speaking thing, but I woke up and I was in a lot a lot of pain and so I moved from up here to downstairs and that is what we're actually going to start this video. So come along with me for a day in the life. So when I wake up and I am in a lot of pain already, I will always come downstairs to this couch for one reason. There are blackout curtains right there that allow me to sleep without any light coming in and hurting my head. I stumble my way down here. I turn on this heating pad as it helps with my migraines and then I will take all the medications I'm allowed to take to try to knock it out so I actually have a chance at being able to work today and get things done. So Brian induced me to this podcast called The Journal. I think it's put on by The Wall Street Journal and I've been really enjoying listening to it and learning a little bit more about what's happening outside my front door and around the world. So I'm going to turn this on this morning as I eat my breakfast. Every morning I am joined by my puppies in a sea of blanket. They've been loving the snow outside. We've got it for a couple of days and so they'll just frolic and play in the snow. What are you doing? You're trying to sneak my muffins, huh? I see you. I see you. Okay, so now that I'm actually dressed for the day, here's the point where I always toss up if I'm going to like do my face and makeup and hair and things like that. It depends on how I feel. I still feel like I'm in a migraine fog but I do want to get some work done today. I find that it helps me really focus sometimes if I feel like I'm actually preparing for a day regardless of how I feel. Now on a side note, if I felt like the rest of the day was going to end in migraine, I would not do my face or hair or anything because I'm just going to be spending it laying down. I am going to go ahead and do it today. I'm thinking I might be able to break through this fog and actually get some stuff done and we'll see. Now you may notice that I did indeed take my prosthetic leg off. Like you guys know it's been having some issues and started acting up again and I was like this is not worth it. So I'm going to balance here and then grab a cool new pair of crutches. After standing up for a solid 10 minutes, my head is spinning. So I am going to lay down for just a few minutes before I continue on with my day. But I feel a little bit more fresh and put together which is helpful even if I'm just staying home alone by myself. This is Lewis, my gray food. All right I think I'm ready to rock and roll for another hour or two. As I continue about my day here I would like to introduce you to Mobility Design who is our sponsor. These are their MD Crutch and I've been using them in the last couple days and it's actually been really cool. Now I first of all I just want to say I feel like I'm like piloting some kind of cool ship you know maybe not but Mobility Design sent these to me to share with you guys and I wanted to point out a couple things that I think are actually really cool. If you know anything about me or my channel you know that I've been on and off crutches my entire life and it's really important to me at this point knowing what options are out there because for the first 14 years of my experience with life on crutches I just use underarm crutches and that was fine but also there are better options out there depending on your body type and your strength level. One of the first things I noticed when trying these out is I felt a lot more stable moving around. My elbows tight to my body I felt a lot more supported and stable moving around not like I was just going to tip over and I really appreciate that. It also distributes your weight differently so instead of all your weight coming down to your wrists like with normal underarm crutches it's supported with more of your frame. Now this is going to utilize different muscles which can be a good option if you want to switch out crutches or it can just be a good option in general as it uses a lot of your core to move and I like that. Another thing that's really cool about these is that they actually have a release like this so it makes it really easy to reach up and grab something without having to get out of your crutch and the same goes for the handles here you just press a button put them down your hands are free pulling back up and they lock into place. If you've heard me talk about arm cups for crutches before you know this is kind of a personal pet peeve of mine a lot of them don't really hold your forearm or hold your wrist and that feels very unsafe to me and these really hold it comfortably without being too tight. A huge thank you to our sponsor and mobility designed thank you so much for supporting my channel and allowing me to share your product the MD Crutch. If you are interested in checking these out check out the link in the description down below they've been really great to work with easy to communicate with so if you have any questions hit them up. Also there is a structural video on how to set these up and how to actually adjust them for your specific body type and height and all of that which I will also link down below and with that let's return to our day that's way too fun to do. So one of the biggest questions I've had here in my channel is what I do for work as someone who deals with chronic pain because the reality of life with chronic pain which is primarily in my neck and my shoulders is that it makes it so that you're pretty unreliable and jobs usually like it if you're reliable. For instance this morning I had a cardiology appointment that I was supposed to get to and then that migraine hit which I get quite often and I wasn't able to go this is something that had been scheduled for three weeks I'm gonna have to wait another three weeks for it and that's a huge bummer but also there's nothing that I can do about it so it's one of those situations where I make sure I'm awake long enough to call and let them know what's going on and apologize that I won't be there because I am literally incapable of getting up and just roll with the punches. So what I actually do for work is I work in software development I don't do programming myself but I work with clients I do that and then I also do YouTube as much as I do it. I found this job in particular through a friend of mine her husband owns a company we've known him for quite some time and he had a position that would allow me to work from home that the hours were flexible I just need to get stuff done essentially by the end of the week so if I have a bad day I can switch around some of my hours and it was really a perfect fit I'm really grateful for it. I feel like living with chronic pain is this funny little juggling act where you prioritize what you absolutely have to and the rest may or may not get done and that can be really frustrating I have days where that drives me insane because all I want to do is get back to the people I need to get back to and check the boxes I have to do and accomplish things I want to do and there are some days where my body's like nope that's just not going to happen like this morning and right now I'm a little bit in a haze and a fog and I'm not going to be able to do super high level cognitive activities at my job right now I'm going to be able to do the minimum I'm going to be able to do things that don't require me to think really heavily or deal with numbers or have intense conversations and so today's a day I just have to scale back a little bit and that's okay so it's been about an hour and a half of work up here I'm going to go ahead and transfer downstairs my downstairs living room is the only place that can get really really dark in my house during the day and so I'm going to transfer my computer down there get horizontal to continue work hi do you see do you see what I have to deal with it's terrible it's absolutely terrible so like I was talking about a little while ago one of the weirdest things about living life with chronic pain and migraines is that it is really unpredictable because for instance today I'm not getting a lot done and this might not be the world's most exciting vlog but at least it's honest but there are other days where I wake up and I feel pretty decent I don't have to take much medication if any I'm able to focus I get stuff done I'm able to go places interact with people be on film videos in the light like all of that I have days like that and then I have days like this and then I have days that are way worse it's very variable and I never know when it's coming or when it's not and so I just do the best I can to take care of myself on the days would and it isn't super awesome like today it is now approaching one o'clock and I think it is time for the next dose of medication for my migraine as it continues to creep around in the background I was able to get some good work done which I'm really proud of myself and happy for I'm gonna rest for a little while and then hopefully dive back into it it's now 3 30 3 o'clock 3 30 in the afternoon and I am finally I don't know maybe coming out of the haze I've got my computer up here I'm making some lunch I'm trying to refocus get some stuff done let's get to it we have now reached the point in the story where I become very productive to try to make up for lost time as my brain is finally working the right way great news guys I think I'm ready to put my leg back on and return to life as a bipedal human being even if half of me is robotic and now my beautiful friends it is time to make my afternoon french press coffee decaf because I'm trying to cut back on the caffeine but still it's delicious so something that Brian and I occasionally get to do after our work days is go work somewhere else like a coffee shop or somewhere similar and that's what we're gonna go do right now it gives us both an opportunity to catch up on things work is never really done done and Brian is studying for this crazy huge test and so our days usually go really late depending on how my body has treated me that day how things have gone what I've gotten done what I've not gotten done but I've had a couple hours to go still and so it's really nice to go to the house and spend some time together even if we're not technically interacting we still got to work alongside one another the day is done guys I went to that coffee shop and we got like three hours of work done I feel like my day actually added up to something and I accomplished something now it is time to take my leg off relax on the couch with my husband and then go to bed and I'm hoping tomorrow will be a great day I've got a number of meetings I've got stuff to do I'm feeling good right now I'm feeling energized we'll see what happens tomorrow morning welcome to the next day I was gonna end the video last night and just make it like a full day you know in the life but I wanted to let you guys know that the next day is going wonderfully I've gone to two work meetings I'm out and about doing things I've been super productive and checking items off my to-do list for work and I feel great I feel really good actually and so I wanted to end on a happier note where I'm actually out and about doing things it's weird how variable all of this is because some days I can barely do anything I can't think straight I can't barely move and then other days I'm pretty sure I could take on the entire world and win today is one of the latter days and I hope that the energy and lack of pain continues a huge thank you goes out to our sponsor again mobility designed thank you for sponsoring this video all links are in the description down below a huge thank you to all of my patrons over on patreon as well for allowing me to do what I do here and last but certainly not least thank you for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me you could be anywhere in the world doing anything and you chose to learn a little bit more about a day in my life and I really appreciate that thank you I love you guys I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video bye guys