 Hello there my beautiful lovely internet friends! Welcome to my 3-year amputation am- am- amp- amperversary. Amputationversary. Amperversary celebration! So today, October 11th is exactly three years since I walked into a hospital and, uh, rolled out without a leg, which was a bizarre experience, which I fully documented on this channel. Now if you've been here since the beginning you know that that didn't exactly go smoothly. About a month and a half after I had my amputation I had a bad fall in a restaurant that led to additional surgeries and an additional amputation. Now that waiting period in my life was a pretty dark one and I wanted to play a video of me trying to be hopeful and look forward to the things that I hope one day I might be able to do. This is called What I'm Gonna Do After Amputation. The thumbnails were like post amputation goals and genuinely I do not remember a single thing that I mentioned in this video so I'm kind of curious what I was able to do maybe what I'm working through still and also to just take some time today to talk about the last three years after we go through this video. As we start today's celebration and I look back on the things that I wanted to do and did I do them I'd like to give a big shout out to our sponsor Skillshare. I have talked about the many times before I have partnered with this company long term but they are incredible. Skillshare is an online learning community where there are thousands of different courses to choose from on topics that ran from photography to illustration to watercolor to business to productivity to self-help and improvement and more. Right now I am taking a procreate course for iPad specifically. Lately I've wanted to explore kind of different art formats and so I got procreate and I've been playing around with it and taking this course to learn all the basics. Intro to Procreate illustrating on the iPad is taught by Brooke Glaser and as a course I would highly recommend you check out. If that's something you're interested in however there are so many topics that you can look through and choose and figure out what might be fun for you to learn. I'm a big believer in the idea that continuing to learn is a very beneficial thing for our lives even if it's like 10 minutes a day to do something that's new to you and could be exciting and maybe exploring things you didn't even know you were interested in before is a great way to develop who you are and what you know about yourself and your creativity. And to make this even better Skillshare has offered the first 1000 of my subscribers who click that link down below a one month free trial so you can start exploring your creativity today which I would highly recommend that you do. So check out that link down below let me know what you think and let's dive into this. Is no T-minus two days until I have my second low the knee agitation? Why would it is a locked deal if I thought that we would take today's video to focus on the reason why I did this in the first place. Hello there it's editing Joe here just wanted to pop in and say that the audio quality on that past video is not fantastic there's nothing I can do right now to fix that however the clips are pretty brief so you won't have to deal with that for too long. These are the things big and small that I cannot wait to do and share with you guys when I get there. Let's start with a simple one walk my dogs around the block. Okay this one makes me a little misty-eyed already but this is a goal that I blew out of the water. I took my dogs for a walk earlier today and it's that really freaking simple little thing of being able to be like yeah I think the puppies need a walk let's just go around the block let's go for a mile walk and just being able to do that is not something I will ever take for granted again because I realize how delicate that can be there were years where it was always a question mark of if I went for a walk would I make it back to the house or would I have to call someone to come pick me up? That is one of the most exciting simple ridiculously little things that I cannot wait to do just take my dogs for a walk in the morning. Secondly a little bit of a bigger goal I want to go for a jog with my dad when I was a kid before any of this happened before I fell off the horse and shattered my ankle that led to all of this I would go jogging with my dad sometimes. So this actually came true this year and again it makes me misty-eyed to think about to be able to have had this experience with my dad this was all documented in the running world video that they came out and did on me I'll pop some of the footage out but I I got to go running with my dad and I feel like those moments I will always savor to my core so I know you're watching dad thank you I love you it was amazing to be able to run again with you. I want to run a 5k but I think what I actually want to do is run a marathon. Okay so this is one I actually also did I ran a 5k about a month and a half ago two months ago also some footage on screen when I crossed that finish line I just started balling in my dad's arms I hate crying in public but that was a moment that was that was worth the tears for everything it took to get there and all the support and all the people I had by my side along and after running a 5k I'm not sure if I if I have goals of a marathon anymore I definitely have goals of more 5ks and a 10k but I'm still trying to figure out if a long-distance runner is in the cards for me or if I don't care that much. I live in Colorado and if you don't know about Colorado we have a ton of 14ers which are mountains that are overfitting. Oh right they are intense to climb. This is a goal that is still on the list I have not yet hiked a 14er which is a mountain that's over 14,000 feet we have I think 54 of them haven't tackled this one just yet I'm hoping maybe next summer as the season's kind of coming to a close but that would be a lot of heavy-duty work on my leg and I do still have some sore spots I'm still building up some endurance so that's the first one I haven't done just yet. I hiked on the weekends with Brian and the puppies just lovely. I've done that many times uh Brian and I went for a three mile hike just this past weekend at Stratton Open Space which is one of our favorite places to go we go everywhere honestly uh but yeah we went for a walk we brought little Sophie with us and it was just perfect and delightful and beautiful and amazing to be back in nature and there's so much that I can do now. I feel like it's so important to take a moment to think about that and acknowledge that for myself being able to look back and knowing that even though I'm smiling in this video my mindset was in a really low place I had hope but I was like barely hanging on because it was so much it was a lot to deal with. I was dealing with mental health issues on top of it and knowing that I was going to be going under the knife and they were going to be taking away more of my body the next day that was the last thing I ever wanted to do again knowing how painful it was the first time but being able to look back now and be like gosh darn it Jo I'm glad you hung on because it was really really really worth it even if you couldn't see it at the time. Swing dancing! So I watched my videos not long ago I used to go swing dancing every Sunday night in high school and I love it I love dancing. So this is another one that is still on my list I was talking with my friend Megan the other day about giving this a shot. I love dancing I am oh boy not talented it's just it's not in my jeans guys but dumb I love dancing especially swing dancing ballroom dancing it's so fun. I'm also watching dancing with the stars for the first time ever because Cody Riggsby from Peloton is on and I love him and watching everybody learn and do these dances I'm like oh that's my heart I love dancing so yes swing dancing is still on the agenda maybe I'll sign us up for a ballroom dancing class who knows. Zero skill no skill unbelievably white in the stereotypical white people can't dance when it comes to dancing. That is still accurate and I want to be able to dance like an idiot at concerts like I'm going to lose the quality concert. I did this okay so um not that long ago I went to a very small concert of one of my favorite bands called the classic crime and when I say I danced like an idiot I danced like an idiot. I was bouncing up and down like I was a 14 year old at my first concert just low-key rocking out all over the place as Brian is standing there horribly embarrassed of me and it was awesome. Do the incline again so the incline is this ridiculously difficult short hike in Colorado Springs it used to be railroad tracks up to the top pecs peak it's like a crazy elevation main in a very short period of time. This is something I still do want to do but I'm doing it with caution because I think I could make it up right now I think my fitness and my leg stability is in a place where I could climb those stairs it's like this big thing in Colorado that people do it's it's really athletically challenging but the problem is two and a half mile trail down where it's pretty steep downwards and going downhill with my prosthetic is is still really painful. I haven't tackled that one just yet still very much want to but I'm not really willing to sacrifice my leg feeling okay for like a week um at this point. I want to be on wear high heels on a date with my husband Brian but this unfortunately is still going to be quite a ways away um I had in my mind insurance will approve a new prosthetic every three years so I thought every three years I can get a new one false they only approve it every three years if it breaks my prosthetic leg is thankfully doing great but that means that I don't get to add another one to my collection and they are crazy expensive without insurance so for the foreseeable future we're still working with flats guys this doesn't require a working prosthetic leg but just get back to jiu-jitsu I would love to get back to jiu-jitsu. I did this is something I have not posted about anywhere um because I've wanted to like slowly get back into it and not worry about being on camera and like be present in the moment but I'm definitely gonna be doing a jiu-jitsu video in the near future because oh my god guys it has been so freeing to get back to um I was shocked by the way that I felt I'll leave it at that and leave that for the upcoming jiu-jitsu video. So my family uses tradition that while my mom is like making food on Thanksgiving at the house the boys or whoever's there will go out and play frisbee golf at this course near our house and the last three years I haven't gone because my ankles wreck I want to go do that with them. I had the opportunity to do this and frankly just decided against it because I rather wanted to sit and eat pastries and you know kind of help cook things uh instead of instead of going on playing frisbee golf it doesn't rank higher than like good coffee and conversations with the people who aren't going. Run with the bulls in Barcelona or is it Madrid? I'm not sure. I actually don't want to do either one of those things but it sounds cool. Oh okay I was like did I really want that at some point? Did I want to run with the bulls? I don't want to run with the bulls. Don't don't make please don't make me run with the bulls. That is a thing that people do though. Go back to Ireland and walk around the streets of Dublin with Brian and or friends. So March 2019 when I was still in this waiting period of being on crutches waiting to figure out what was going on with my leg waiting for more surgeries we went to Ireland with friends and it was incredible but it was difficult not being able to walk being in a foreign country going and doing a lot of things and hands down one of my favorite things in the entire world is going to new places and just walking. There's something about it that just feels like perfection to me and so it is still a goal of ours we're saving up to hopefully eventually get back to Ireland just the two of us and go back to Dublin and Kenmare and Donegal be able to more fully experience these places and walk around the countryside and all of that but it's a little expensive to go so it's gonna be a little while. Last but not least I'd like to be able to bike to a local coffee shop on like Sunday. So this is another one that I haven't done yet but I am capable of doing. I was gifted a Peloton by the company not sponsored don't have to say anything about it I just love it I am so grateful for the ability to bike because it's something that doesn't make me feel restricted at all it's very low impact and so I don't feel like my leg really holds me back that much. So I've done a lot of biking but it's always been indoor we'd love to get bikes in the future I have to figure out how I can work like clip-on shoes to keep my prosthetic leg on but I also can't unclip my prosthetic without reaching down and helping it turn meaning that if I had to like put my right foot down to stabilize myself if I came to a stop or was experiencing a fall I wouldn't be able to do that so I'm still figuring out how I might be able to finagle a bike in the wild. Man watching that video back um two years after I recorded it three years after my amputation sometimes I struggle with the balance between being cheesy and inspirational and and honestly sharing things that make my heart full and this is one of those things where looking back I remember what a difficult place I was in I remember the question marks the insecurity the feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness and is this gonna work out am I even gonna be able to walk my dogs ever again you know what is my life what am I doing and to be able to look back now and be like damn I did that and so much more I learned to snowboard I went to ninja gyms I've gone rock climbing I ran the 5k I've run with my dad again sometimes it's hard to feel the weight of all of that because it's very emotional in the best kind of way and holy cow I would not have believed it if I had told myself that many years ago I feel like I'm at this point in my life where life still happens right but at my core I'm okay and I've never had that experience before and so looking back at moments like this and looking back at moments in my life when I was dealing with significant trauma and knew it would never get better and being able to look at that and say Joe you were so wrong and I'm so glad you were so wrong it's something I never thought I'd be able to do so it's so cool seeing this video and thinking about all the things I was able to do and I have said it before but gosh darn I am so grateful so grateful there have been so many things and people and situations that have helped me along the way here and to have the opportunity to say I did these things is wow what a gift so now that I have been an amputee for a whole three years which is not that long but also is long enough to start feeling like I have a new normal it's been really interesting to me to kind of see the progression of making peace with this of accepting it embracing it days I do days I don't I'm now at a place I would even say very recently where I feel like being an amputee and dealing with my prosthetic leg has become really normal I talk about it a lot online I share information education but as far as my daily everyday life like interacting with friends doing things it definitely plays a part it comes into play but it's normal now like it's just a part of my life and it doesn't feel like this exhausting huge major inconvenience all of the time there are moments when I'm traveling or when a part breaks where all those feelings come back up but now it's kind of like yeah this is my life all right and that took years to get to and I'm sure there are still parts of that that will take years to get to a better place on it's not a straight path when you go through a loss like this there's a long grieving process that takes way longer than you would like it to and an adjustment period I just feel like I'm in a really good place with all this and I don't know how to say anything more profound than that but this is this this worked it actually worked so let me raise my coffee glass coffee mug in celebration to um my three-year amputation anniversary this is a happy day for me because it came with so many complications was so much more difficult than I thought possible but was worth it and was something I got to choose to make my life better and it made my life better and I am going to celebrate that and I am so grateful to all of the people who are happy along with me to you maybe watching this video right now maybe you've watched me for a day or a week or three freaking years you've been a part of this journey you've made this so much better for me you've given me things and and a platform and support I genuinely never could have imagined so this day belongs to all of you my beautiful subscribers and listeners as well and with that I'm gonna go ahead and celebrate by doing an incredibly mundane thing and taking my dogs for a walk because now I can actually do that huge thank you again to our sponsor Skillshare I really believe in this company I actively use them my iPad is sitting right over there where I've been learning Procreate like I talked about they have so many different courses to choose from so check out that link down below it helps to support this channel but also something I think could be really cool for you to my patrons who have stuck with me for such a long time new and old thank you for your generosity your support your carrier kindness and your community over there and to you watching this video right now thank you for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today you could be anywhere else in the world doing anything else and you chose to hang out with me for a few minutes and I really appreciate that I love you guys I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video