 Hello there, my beautiful, lovely, delightful, good-looking internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you for joining me here today. Here's the thing, the last many videos on this channel for the most part have been pretty heavy subjects because there's been a lot going on in like the last three months of my life and a lot of people's lives. So I thought today we would do something a little bit more light-hearted and fun and engaging, which is answering as many of your questions as I possibly can. I put a post up on my community page, also over on Instagram. If you aren't following me over there and you like seeing adorable puppy dogs all day long on my stories, check it out. And oh boy, we have some fun questions to answer today. But first, a quick word from our sponsor, then we're gonna dive in. I'm thrilled to say that one of my favorite sponsors, Skillshare, is sponsoring today's video. This is a company I love talking about because I actively use them every day. Skillshare is an online learning platform with literally thousands of classes to choose from on so many different topics. Anything creative to business to productivity and more. Right now, I've been going through MKVHD. His video creation course. As a YouTuber, I love to always be learning and figuring out what other people are doing. But if you're interested in photography or painting or how to organize your house better, they have a course for you and I'd highly recommend checking them out. Their courses are beautifully done and also have community tabs where you can interact with other people taking the classes and makes it a very engaging experience. Personally, I've been using them for over a year now. And fantastically, Skillshare is offered the first 1,000 viewers of this video who clip the link in the description. A full one month free trial to start playing around with your creativity and take different classes a day. I know this is actually how I got started with Skillshare. I tried their month free trial from a different YouTube video that I watched. I loved it and I kept paying for it. So check out that link in the description and now let's dive into a full Q&A. Out of all of the surgeries you've endured, what is one that you wish you didn't have? What a good question. I think I'd have to say the first surgery post amputation where they went in and removed bursa that had formed. I had a really bad fall a couple weeks after my amputation that caused a lot of damage and they thought the damage was limited to just bursas forming. So they went in and fixed it but it turned out a couple months later that they had to cut more of my leg off anyways. So it was kind of a useless surgery and so that would probably be top of my list. I do want to flip this question around and say what's my favorite surgery? Which is a weird sounding question if you have not had dozens of surgeries in your life but it'd probably be my wrist surgery. I'll show you the little scars here. We got those right there. I was having issues like holding pens, holding pencils. I couldn't bend my wrist this way and turned out there was a tendon that was kind of like way too tight. It was stuck. They went in. They fixed it. It was totally fine in a couple of weeks. No problems, complications. It actually fixed the problem and that was amazing. Dorothy says, how are you doing seriously? Are you doing all right? Y'all have been through it the last couple of weeks especially just wanted to check in. I think I'm doing okay. It's definitely been a weird few months from major medical issues with my kidneys to losing a dog, to having a surgery, to having a gun pulled on me. It's been a weird couple of months. The last couple of days I've started to finally feel like myself. I'm motivated. I'm energized. My body's been all right. So right now in this moment I am doing quite all right actually. Trauma survivor Cynthia asks, beautiful Joe, is phantom pain a real thing when missing a limb or how do you cope with the pain mentally? Great question. Yes, phantom pain is 100% a real thing and it is absolutely bizarre. I think when you think of phantom pain it's easy to think of oh is it like all in your head? Is it all made up? But what it actually is is your nerves firing kind of trying to connect with that part of your body that isn't there anymore because when you lose a body part you know they hack your leg off. Your brain has a map of your body and that map doesn't necessarily get updated and so you get a lot of weird sensations and a lot of pain sometimes. I do deal with phantom pain every day. I get these kind of zaps of electrical just painful, painful energy. I am so grateful that mine usually only lasts a few seconds at a time you know a number of times throughout the day but it is not prolonged which makes it a lot easier to deal with. Doomcat asks, what's your favorite experience with your fans? What a great question. I'm grateful to say I have a lot of really lovely experiences with people who have watched my channels but in real life the first thing that pops to mind is back in 2019 I went to the amputee coalition conference in San Antonio, Texas and a fellow walked up to me there who recognized me and said hey I just want to let you know that you know I watched your channel and you're the reason that I had the courage to go through with this amputation. I really needed it you know to be able to walk, to be able to hold my kids, to be able to do anything but it was terrifying to me and watching you go through with this gave me the strength to make that decision myself and it's worked out really well. That was such an honor to hear. It was also terrifying knowing that I really did have some kind of influence on people. So it's important that what I share about my own journey is accurate right but that was an incredible experience to have. My favorite question I got. How's the religious crisis going? Great question. Over the past year in particular there's been a lot of deconstruction happening. I used to be a very very religious person. I was very Christian for the first like 20, 25 years of my life as in like my entire life was devoted to my church, faith, God, that was all I cared about but a lot of things happened and I learned a lot of things and a lot of my mindsets changed and that is no longer something I identify myself with which is very weird to say because it was kind of the cornerstone of who I was for a very long time so sometimes it does feel like a mental crisis. I'm like who am I if this is not what I stand on all the time but there's been a lot of freedom in that for me personally and so it's something that I'm still very much working through and figuring out what parts of that if any do I believe? What parts of other things do I believe? So I don't know is really the answer. Robin asked if you could have any job in the world what would it be and why? I love this question. This is one that could never actually happen but picture it with me. I'm two years old. My mother puts me in gymnastics training. I grow up to be a Cirque du Soleil performer and I'm doing backflips off of crazy things and I'm super strong and I just think Cirque du Soleil is really cool and I would probably be like a gymnast if I could be anything but speaking in the real world honestly I think my dream job is what I'm doing right now I'm pursuing public speaking it's something I love doing as restrictions are lifting as the pandemic is hopefully continuing to be under control I'm hoping to get in front of a lot more live audiences but also talking to you in front of a camera I love being able to do this and there's a bird that's talking very loudly outside my window I'm so sorry if you hear that My friend Sophie asks what would you tell your orthopedic surgeons if you could go back and talk to them? As many bad experiences in the medical world as I've had my surgeons, the men, it's always been men weirdly who have worked on me have always been very talented there have been some mistakes made I think I would probably tell my first amputation surgeon to make sure that he gets the leg the right length it was cut like a little bit too long where it made getting fit for prosthetic a little nerve wracking to see if we could actually fit everything down there it worked out it was fine he didn't do anything wrong but it definitely would have been nice to have that kind of more of the correct length but it absolutely worked out because I had to have another amputation surgery they cut another inch off and so it worked out in the end Mary from Patreon asks you did previous post on sex after your amputation but I'm wondering if any of your rehab team addressed your concerns this is a really good question no this was actually never a conversation I had with doctors aside from when I was cleared for any kind of intimate activity for me personally I didn't have any major concerns I was a lot more insecure with the fact that my whole body had changed and everything but my husband and I did a great job of working through that I do wish that maybe there were more conversations open about this subject because it's something that a lot of people struggle with who have limb loss or limb differences or disability sometimes and sometimes not at all right but I think more resources and physician or PT kind of conversations about this would be great David from Patreon asks do you enjoy winter sports skiing, knee boards or sleds it always seemed fun yes this last year I got to go snowboarding for the first time it was awesome and then I hated it and then it was awesome and then I hated it and thought I will never do this again and then I loved it it took a while to kind of get used to I fall a lot but I love snowboarding I've never been able to do it I've lived in Colorado for most of my life and I'm finally able to start we already got our passes for this year Brian and I are going to be going a lot and I am absolutely thrilled Ginz asks do you find your animals have a positive impact on your chronic illnesses yes I absolutely do owning pets especially the amount that we have right now we have two dogs we had three but one passed away like I said a cat and three rats it's a lot of work right it can be overwhelming sometimes when you're dealing with chronic illnesses but I have found that animals really pick up on when I'm in pain or when I'm having a hard day my dog Sophie she's a four year old German Shepherd we've had her since she was a puppy you know full of energy Rambunk just wants to do things but when I would have a migraine she would turn into a different dog and just be chill and hang out with me on the couch all day long all of my animals have always been like that where they're very attuned to if I'm okay or not and if I'm not okay they're like right with me cuddling and for me that is such a positive thing also having dogs for me does give me motivation to get moving a big piece of managing and dealing with fibromyalgia which is something that I have is staying active moving so knowing that I've got to take the dogs out they got to go for a walk is a good way to kind of keep in that pattern Ryan from Patreon asks would you ever do a meetup provided the world is past the pandemic this is a question I struggle with because I would absolutely love to because I love seeing people in real life I do get overwhelmed by like large long social events but I love people right I do have a lot of concerns about safety due to some past issues that I've had so I absolutely would consider doing a meetup but I would probably do it alongside other YouTubers in a larger event kind of thing where I can meet people and say hey and hang out but I'm still trying to figure out how I might feel most comfortable doing something like that Scottish Blade Runner is a really cool username so what's your favorite band or song that you can't get enough of? right now I've been listening to Bo Burnham's Inside, like his album of the specialty that he did on repeat I've also listened to way too much of the Hamilton musical but as far as bands I love Need to Breathe I love The Classic Crime, I love NF Lincoln Park will always be my favorite band Lewis Capaldi and many many others Marissa asks how to cope with feeling completely out of place when everyone around is able bodied man this is a good question it's really hard to always feel a little bit different I know that a lot of people in all kinds of groups deal with this kind of that feeling of being just a little disconnected and detached from the people around you because something about you is just different and that's just how it is and I've definitely felt that a lot and I do my best to pretend that it doesn't exist depending on the situation or to just be like it's fine whatever but there are sometimes when it feels very isolating it has been so important for me to find people I can talk to about that without a filter people who also are in the same boat as me that doesn't necessarily mean amputees that can be anyone who has that similar experience of feeling on the outside of general or average society and talking about that stuff with people who get it who understand really builds community, helps me feel not alone and kind of normalizes that feeling because at the end of the day when I'm in a group with a lot of people I know so many people are going to be like normal you're just a little bit different but you do feel outside sometimes and that's hard to deal with so finding individuals or groups where you don't have to worry about that for a little while is really good do I like Marvel movies? yes absolutely I have watched everyone at least once most of them twice or three times my favorite Marvel creation is not a movie it's actually a TV show called WandaVision I think they did a really cool job of kind of managing how someone might work through trauma in the Marvel world I loved it check it out if you haven't seen it already Elizabeth Olsen who acts in that is just oh my gosh fantastic it's a great show M asked do you ever find yourself slipping into the why me mindset? I love this question because the answer is yes absolutely I've always heard that asking you know why me or having a pity party is this like really bad thing to do it's very taboo it's talked about like a sign of weakness I know so many people who have said I've never allowed myself to ask why me and if that works for them I think that's really powerful and wonderful but for me personally allowing myself to ask that question kind of you know raging against the unfairness of the universe sometimes and being like why why the heck did this happen to me why is this going on and maybe indulging in a pity party for a few hours has been important for me to stay honest with myself and process through my emotions and acknowledge when I'm feeling that way right but as I do that I've always gone into it with the understanding that I'm not gonna stay there I might be asking why me and knowing that I'm never actually gonna get an answer and just sinking into pity of this socks for a few moments or a few hours but knowing that I'm absolutely not gonna let myself stay there I'm not gonna make decisions based on that or operate my life out of that kind of a mindset but allowing myself to feel it I think is really okay Larissa asked what is your next goal in life if I'm just being silly something I'd really love to is act in something act in anything I've had a very little taste of it a little bit of experience auditioning for a few things that kind of came up unexpectedly and I've loved it it's so fun to kind of get your mind around the head of someone else like around another character and how would they think how would they interact being able to express emotions I might not normally feel comfortable expressing it's just been a lot of fun it's something I'd love to learn more about I'd love to get involved with even locally with like plays or things like that when the world opens up a little bit more Johanna from patreon says my question is are you planning to do more live videos where you're painting yes I would absolutely love to I was doing live videos for a while not that long ago but experienced a lot of health issues that made it really difficult to keep any kind of schedule made it difficult to be in front of a camera talking to live people for you know an hour or two on end I would love to get back to that I don't know when that's gonna happen so hopefully soon my patreon friend John asks are you gonna do any more collabs with Anika you two have great energy together I think I'm really glad you think so I adore Anika she's amazing this is her by the way we've done a lot of fun silly videos together the answer is absolutely yes we have one coming up that's that's planned we've both had to recover from our individual surgeries thank you so much for it's for so many fantastic questions both fun and serious if you would like to see another Q&A in the future please let me know in the comment section down below and feel free to ask more questions down there there are so many times when someone asks a question and kind of triggers something in my brain to be like oh I should so let me know what you'd like to hear about in the future on my channel a big thank you again to our sponsor all other information is linked down below I'd highly recommend that you go check them out to all of my patrons who asked so many of these questions thank you for your continued patron ship think that's a word your generosity is what keeps this channel going it is why I'm able to do what I'm doing so thank you and 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 be chose to hang out with me for a few minutes and I really appreciate that I love you guys thinking about you and I'll see you in the next video bye