 Stay tuned until the end of this video if you want an update on the upcoming surgery situation. So I was working on some stuff, right? I look up. This is what I see. Just staring. Such dedication. What could she possibly want? Heaven is a tennis ball. Good girl. Good morning my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back. I am Jo and this is Savie's butt because she's a little camera shy today. I wanted to talk to you about the book Stronger. This is a book written by a survivor of the Boston Marathon bombing. He lost both of his legs above the knee. Now I've had this book in my Audible playlist for quite a while. I knew that I wanted to read it but I was scared to honestly. I knew that he went into the ups and the downs of becoming disabled, being an amputee, and I was kind of scared to access some of those emotions and I wanted to hear about it from someone else who'd gone through it but it was also I knew it was going to be like an emotional process for me. So a couple days ago I finally hit play on my Audible app and started listening and I was really enjoying it. He is a great author. It's super entertaining and I got about I want to say a third of the way through to when he is in the hospital he's starting to learn how to do stuff again like go to bed and that is when I came across a line that made me stop. This line made me really angry and I honestly pride myself on being very difficult to offend or upset. I don't get angry at other people very often like ever but I couldn't help it with this and let me pause and say on the off chance Jeff Bowman that you ever watched this video which I sincerely doubt but if you do I understand this line was not meant in the way that it came across but here's what he wrote and I quote having a knee is huge for amputees. If you lose one leg below the knee you'll be back to your normal life in weeks. No, you won't be. Please don't take this like I was angry at Jeff for writing this because I'm not but I am really angry at this concept and this idea. I am now 16 weeks past a below the knee amputation I got to keep my knee which I am incredibly grateful for. I would never think to comment on the life of someone with an above the knee amputation let alone two that must bring challenges that I have no way to conceptualize. You know I know that I don't know what life like that is like but also someone who does not have a below the knee amputation doesn't know what that's like. I fully realize that being a bilateral above the knee amputee probably brings a lot more challenges than a below knee amputee on just one side. Let's just get out of the way fully fully fully fully aware however at the same time. I don't think that any good is done and I think a lot of damage is done by belittling the struggle of another person unintentionally or intentionally. There is no going back to normal just to clear the air on that. There is no normal. There's a new normal that I will find but the way life was before will never be the case again. I could go on for quite some time about the way that life is different because it is different. It is changed. I am no longer invisible in public. People stare at me all the time. I now question my husband's attraction to me because he married someone with two legs and now I look different. At home I'm walking around hopping. I'm not walking around. I balance on one leg brushing my teeth. I sit in a chair taking a shower. I swear to you every time that I go somewhere new for the first time where people know me I have to give myself like a pep talk to get out the door because I know that this is the first time they're going to see me like this and I don't know how they're going to react and I don't know what conversations are going to come up and it's uncomfortable. It's doable. Life is absolutely worth living and I am able to adjust to life like this but it's weird. It's uncomfortable. It's different. It's not normal. So I'm still in crutches. There are complications which a lot of amputees do have. I'm not unique enough. Going anywhere takes planning. Like before I would just grab my purse and run out the door. Now I really have to think about everything I could possibly need because getting in the car and getting out of the car in itself this is probably going to sound dumb is kind of exhausting between carrying crutches and I usually carry a backpack of things because now there are items I need to carry with me as an amputee which I may do a video on at another time which I never had to do before as a able bodied person. Everything is different. Everything is new. I expend more energy simply by living by existing as an amputee so I'm tired a lot and please don't take this as me complaining or lamenting my new life because I realize that this would be the case but also adjusting is difficult. Also it's going to take a little while and I will not be going back to normal life within weeks. That's never going to happen. The thing is there's moving forward to a beautiful awesome new life but it's new. It's exhausting. It brings a lot of different things and it's hard and that's okay and just because others have it harder in no way decreases my own struggle if that makes sense. I think we can apply this to any situation. So often we're told oh someone else has it worse like that's supposed to make our situation better and frankly it doesn't. We have to acknowledge the reality of our own situations if we're going to get through them in a healthy way I truly believe. Sincerely I am so excited about the life that I am moving towards but that doesn't detract from life that I've lost and the time that I do need to spend grieving that and so just to set the record straight I would like to say that for all below knee amputees out there I recognize that life does not go back to normal within a couple weeks or really ever. You find a new normal and that becomes normal but your old normal is gone and you have to grieve that and also for anyone who's ever experienced any life changing event I realize the same thing is true I don't think this just applies to amputees I think it applies to a lot of different people probably a situation in your life if you're watching this right now. We all have our own crosses to bear our our burdens that we carry let's not judge each others just because we're carrying our own thank you for listening guys I truly appreciate it and again Jeff if you see this I'm not mad and I really hope you didn't come across that way I was just angry at like the concept that I could go back to normal life only because I lost part of my life there are some days I wish I could just go back to normal life with certain things like just daily household activities like I'd really like to be able to vacuum my house of the clumps of dog hair that I will not show on camera because I'm ashamed of the clumps of dog hair but vacuuming my house means hopping around on crutches which is really exhausting and I have three levels so it takes some planning and I'll get it done just not right now and maybe I'll leave that for Brian when he gets home as always thank you for being a part of my journey guys you are amazing I truly appreciate you I did want to give you a quick life update for those of you who are interested in it are following this channel for more than just finding this video I am having surgery again I will most likely have that at the beginning of April I did go see another surgeon on Wednesday a lot was found out in that conversation I will be updating you further on that shortly but I did want to let you know for everyone who has been asking and I so appreciate everyone who cares yes I officially more officially do need to have surgery it was good to get a second opinion the bursa issue is not going away it is getting worse with rest with ice with compression which is weird and not normal and so we're definitely going to have to go ahead and remove it I'm not looking forward to that I am looking forward to bringing you guys with me that will be silver lining to a gloomy cloud that I am not a big fan of but hey we'll get through it won't we be on the lookout for more in-depth video coming up soon in the next couple days on that appointment and kind of what came of that and what the future looks like all right guys that's actually it for me now I'll talk to you soon