 Okay, tell me honestly, does it look like my squishmallow is getting roasted to flames? I'm afraid it might, but the camera's set up, so we're gonna run with it. Hello there, my beautiful, lovely internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. I am not a super spontaneous person. You know, generally speaking, I like having some notice for things. But a crazy opportunity when it came to my prosthetic socket arose, and I had to say yes. There has been super uncomfortable wear prosthetics lately. I kind of go into more of that later in the video. But the outcome of this trip was unbelievably cool. So let me take you back to a couple of weeks ago, when like 14 hours before I got in the plane, I had no plans of going anywhere until my phone rang. But first, a quick word from our sponsor. Thank you so much to our sponsor today, Raid Shadow Legends. Raid Shadow Legends is truly a AAA game, with over 600 champions blessed with unique skills for both mobile and PC. 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Just download Raid with the link in my description or QR code on screen. And then head to trick-or-treat.polarium.com. Enter your details, spin the wheel, and get your prize. Sophie is not one of the prizes that's offered, I'm sorry. Never has there been a better time to get started. So new players, use the link in my description or QR code on screen, and you'll get a free starter pack worth almost $30, three champion, Tyrell, and also this cool in-game loot. You will find these rewards here in your inbox for the next 30 days only. On a personal note, I think it's really important to have games that can kind of distract us. And this one is a very well-known, well-reviewed, and super fun game. So thank you so much to Raid for sponsoring today's video. Let's jump back into it. So there it was, sitting in my sunroom, playing tennis balls with my dogs when my phone rang. It was my buddy Stevie. And he said, Joe, you doing anything tomorrow? I thought we were gonna hang out, do something else. Like, I know, I've got some free time. And he was like, how about you hop on a plane and fly down to Texas and come to this conference and let extremity prosthetics make you a new socket in less than a day. It is way too early. I woke up at 2.30 to get to the airport because we're going to San Antonio. I'm going down to a conference where prosthetics companies offered to make me a brand new socket, try out some new stuff, see how it feels. Why not? Let's do it. Ready, set, go. We are packed. Lights are off. Let's go to the airport, baby. As soon as I landed in San Antonio, I got picked up and we immediately went to a prosthetics office where extremity had brought their sockets and everything they needed to make me a new leg. And we got to work. It was really cool being back in the lab area and actually seeing this process literally come together. So put together within about an hour, maybe an hour and a half of getting off a plane, I was walking around a new socket. When I say that this is not normally how the process goes, I can't stress that enough. What they did for me here usually takes weeks of appointments and it actually felt really good. So with my new socket made, I decided to give it 12 hours before sitting down and actually giving my initial thoughts on it. Because sometimes sockets feel great for a little while but then you realize that there are issues causing pain so I wanted to walk in it a bit before really diving into things. So here's the thing about making a prosthetic. Usually this process takes weeks. It's multiple appointments of fittings, you got to get casted, then they create some things, you try it out, see if it works a couple weeks later, you go back, maybe you get a final leg. It is a lot of trips to your prosthetics office which is great because I love my prosthesis. He's great to hang out with but it is like a 60 minute drive and if something is wrong and I need a new leg, it can be weeks of having to just go without. So the company that wanted to fly me down has a very different approach to making prosthetic sockets that brings that weeks long waiting period down to like an hour or two. Legitimately, I got off the plane in San Antonio at 130 and by 415, travel time included, I was walking out of the prosthetics office with a brand new socket that so far feels really good. So I'm really excited to have this for a lot of different reasons. Primarily it's awesome to kind of go through a new process that is so fast and I think could help so many people, so many amputees, like speed up that prosthetics turn around time so much but additionally, the part that is very cool to me is that these are adjustable. Your limb is constantly changing. It's shrinking, it's, I almost said growing, it's not growing back but it goes through a lot of changes over your lifetime and even sometimes daily. Sometimes you have a spot that starts really hurting your prosthetic is rubbing on it. That's no good. You got to get that fixed but in the past you've had to like drill out your socket or add pads, you know, try things like that. These are entirely adjustable by using a heat gun, heating up the area that seems to be problematic for you and literally just pushing it out or pulling it back in or whatever you need to do and it's not damaging the socket. It's not grinding it out. It's not making changes to it that are irreversible sometimes and this is something you can continue to do over time. You can modify it as your body needs. That in and of itself is really, really, really cool because my prosthetist back in Colorado is crazy talented. He's fantastic. I adore him. I still get really nervous handing over my leg because you tell them what's going on. They make their best guess at how to adjust for that issue and sometimes the changes that are made are kind of hard to reverse and you never want anything to kind of compromise your socket or, you know, walking out of there feeling worse. With this making those changes has become so much easier. And we're at a prosthetics conference where they are introducing this and showing it off to the world and it's been really cool to be at the booth, see the demo going on and have so many prosthetists be like, sorry, what? What are you doing? Because this is not the normal process for making something like this. But also in addition to getting a new socket and trying this out, I got to be a part of the prosthetics convention that's going on right now and oh my God, things that are being made are really, really cool. It has been so awesome to walk around, talk to people, see these hands which my friend Alexis from Stump Kitchen has one of, control it to like pick up a coffee cup which you did not smush because it knows when to like stop gripping things because science. So as a reference point, I've been down on the conference room floor for like three hours today walking around, talking to people, seeing things. I have not been up on my feet for three hours in months because it is very painful. I was able to do it and it felt okay. I really wanted to get kind of back into normal daily life with this socket, see how it felt before kind of finishing up this whole experience and initially unfortunately I was experiencing some valve issues. I don't know what kind of valve or suction got. I really ticked off in a former life but no matter what tool is being used like what kind of valve I always have issues with them and if the valve isn't working right the leg doesn't keep suction it gets really uncomfortable, really painful. So a couple of days ago I was able to make it up to Denver to see the guys again and hopefully get it fixed. But I just made it up to extremities main office here up in Denver and hopefully if it gets fixed I'm actually gonna wear it to go swing dancing tonight. We'll see how it goes. Let's head in. And drum roll please. It worked. They got it all taken care of and I actually did go swing dancing later that night. I don't have any footage. I wish I could show you some but I just went there to really like immerse myself in it to see how it felt get back into it and I was able to dance on this leg for like an hour and a half. I had to call it at that point because I knew I was kind of pushing it too far but wearing this every day since it feels fantastic. Also I really like kind of just the design and the look of it a little bit more sleek. So I may have mentioned this earlier in the video but this video is not sponsored by extremity at all. They flew me down there. They paid for you know my accommodations but none of that was like based on the idea that I had to make a video. I wanted to make this to share my experience because in my mind I was like if this works it opens up so many doors for amputees and so if you are an amputee if you know one who's maybe looking for a different kind of socket I cannot recommend more checking extremity out I've linked their website down below and then talking to your process about it because the ease of creation and for me most importantly the ease of being able to edit and modify the shape that's I feel like the term game changer is used too much but it really is a game changer for prosthetics. I will continue to be supporting this company following along with them trying out more of their stuff. Okay also side note the material that they have created for this it almost feels more giving to walk on like it's solid right? Like it's not like a bendy flexible socket but stepping into it it's almost like there's more give in a really good way where it's just not as sharp on the parts of my leg that can be pain spots and I really love that they actually care genuinely seem to care about amputees Trace especially who is who is the the guy who made this for me it is so clear that he and his team like really have a passion for making things work right thank you extremity for getting me down there getting me a new socket it's been working really well what a cool experience I think I'll try to be spontaneous more often and say yes to opportunities because this was great thank you again to Rage Shadow Legends for sponsoring today's video all their links and information are down below as with every video a huge thank you to my beautiful patrons over on Patreon for sponsoring my channel and what I do here and most importantly to you watching this video right now thank you for hanging out on this journey with me for letting me talk about stuff that excites me that is benefiting my life and I think could help a lot of other people's lives it could be anywhere else in the world doing anything else but 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 bye guys