 is being an amputee more expensive than being a normal person a healthy able-bodied full-limbed person we're still normal people well good morning my beautiful internet friends and welcome to another taboo topics tuesday tuesday taboo topics i'm not sure what i'm calling this i wanted to tackle yet another taboo topic today for you guys talking about the financial aspect of being an amputee now this might not sound super fascinating i don't know actually thought it was pretty interesting is being an amputee more expensive than being a normal person a healthy able-bodied full-limbed person we're still normal people that's a good question so this was actually something i put a little bit of thought into before i had my amputation surgery but first of all i think this is gonna vastly differ depending on where you are located in the world what healthcare looks like i can talk about my experience which i will do i'll also briefly cover national statistics according to the amputee coalition but my experience so far is that absolutely yes but it's not always in the ways that you think obviously like having major surgery having a limb removed is not cheap that's a pretty costly surgery having to stay in a hospital for a few days that's not cheap having to be fitted with a prosthetic let alone taking home that prosthetic which for instance mine is twenty thousand dollars and i'm up below the knee amputee if you're an above the knee amputee you're looking at over a hundred thousand dollars generally speaking depending on what kind of leg you get now that's before insurance costs also those costs vastly differ depending on what kind of prosthesis you're getting it's really expensive and that's also assuming that you don't have further issues like more surgeries like i've had which most amputees end up having some kind of complication after their initial surgery oh hi there friends this is editing joe this is what i really look like most of the time hollywood just kidding i just realized in editing this i don't know how many of you guys grew up in church but if you grew up in church you'll know what i mean by this it feels a little bit like the sermon where the pastor starts being like we're not asking you to give money to the church but we're gonna talk about why it's so important to give money to your church talking about money at all is kind of weird so i'm gonna talk about money yeah i'm not asking for money what i'm trying to say is i'm not giving like the the pastor tithing at the pulpit speech that probably doesn't make sense i'm gonna leave now my husband and i are lucky enough to have pretty decent medical insurance if you are anywhere else in the world you might know a little bit about the strength situation here in the us but it's not necessarily great we're lucky that we have pretty good coverage but even so we have still had to pay thousands thousands of dollars over the past few months long story short the medical costs are high my surgery was seventy thousand dollars my hospital stay was more than that we did not pay for all of that out of pocket thank god otherwise we would not be we would be bankrupt but we're lucky a lot of people don't have great insurance here i don't know about the rest of the world and sometimes you do go bankrupt for medical costs in fact that's not an entirely unusual situation which is kind of heartbreaking to me but there's the medical costs and then there's like the life costs i've been unable to work my job for the past seven months consistently first two months after amputation i was in no condition to do anything i don't remember most conversations i had during that time because a lot of medications that i was on i was just really focused on recovering and all of that and what i do is like half from home and half being on my feet and and like sitting up and going and doing something like going and doing something else and letting people into houses and stuff like that and so i have not been able to actually make money in months and we plan for like three months off work because we're like all right two months i'll be super out of it another month maybe like readjusting the things and i'll be good to go that has not been the case i've kind of been limping along and it's now been seven months that i've been working kind of part-time and i've been super grateful for youtube because it's helped out and i've been super grateful for like part-time work working with people at my normal job who have helped me out but i also work for myself so i don't have benefits for long-term being sick or being off like some people do and so we're making it i'm not at all complaining in this video but it stretches things really really thin when you have medical issues after medical issues and hopefully i'll be able to get back to working here really soon but i don't know depending on what happens with my leg and that's the situation for a lot of people so there's the medical cost there's the being out of work cost and then there's also the i can't do the things that i could before cost like being able to go pick up groceries the grocery store for a couple months not being able to clean the house not being able to take care of things that i could before and there are small costs that are associated with that as well so the average lifetime health care costs for someone who is not missing a limb are about three hundred and sixty thousand dollars if you are missing live it's over five hundred thousand dollars so that's a good comparison of the cost differential i'm pretty sure i've just about net that already in the past year with what i've been facing and that's the case for a lot of people i mean a lot of stuff comes up but health care costs alone there's a difference of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars then there's also like assistive devices like for instance an eyewalk i was given an eyewalk by the company because i'm part of a beta testing program for them which is amazing but that's a couple hundred dollars you might use crutches or a wheelchair you might need modifications around the house you might need to install handrails or something around your toilet seat to be able to like hold on and sit down to you might need chairs for sitting down in the shower there's there's a long list of things that i would not have ever thought of before that you might need depending on how you drive you might need modifications in your car depending on what state you're in they might require you to have modifications in your car all of those things cost money also something that i think is important to bring up is the mental health cost of it i started counseling before i actually had my amputation i really wanted to be on top of things because mental health is a priority to me it's always been a huge risk in my life and an issue and so i started with a counselor before and i continued to present date that is not inexpensive that's partly covered by insurance but most countries in the world don't really prioritize mental health just yet and so counseling and therapy are generally not cheap but they're worth it they're worth it to get through things trying to keep your head on straight trying to have a healthy mindset working through issues that come up and the grief that is there because it's a major loss to lose a part of your body it can change the way that you interact with people around you that your friends interact with you it changes and can change relationships and the course of your life and it's just it's a major life change and it needs to be taken seriously and i as well as a lot of other professionals recommend seeking out professional help in the situation and so mental health care costs are something i think that should be factored in as well that generally aren't and all of this is just talking about the money aspect there's there's definitely a cost to being an amputee as well so to sum it all up yes being an amputee is expensive it's a lot more expensive than i think most people would think lifetime costs just health care alone are a lot higher but also if you look at lifestyle costs they tend to be a lot higher as well especially depending on where you live what health care situation you're in what your health insurance is what kind of help you have who you have supporting you what you do for work what kind of time you have to take off in my situation like i said we've been able to find a way to like make it through and all of that now this video is not at all i really hope it didn't come across as like complaining or anything like that like i said we've totally been able to find a way to make it work it's just been unexpected how expensive it has been in different ways but it's all been a learning process and there's a way through so thanks guys for listening i also want to give a big shout out to my patrons thank you guys so much for what you do for me i truly appreciate it today our patron of the day is gabriel smith gabriel thank you so much for supporting that patreon i truly appreciate it all right guys next week we're gonna get into a little a little bit more uncomfortable topics to talk about see what i mean then let me know what you think of taboo tuesday's taboo topic tuesday taboo taboo tuesday topic it's nothing like that let me know what you think if this video is your cup of tea i would love it if you'd hit subscribe and like i would love to see you in the next video i love you guys i'm thinking about you and i will see you in the next video thank you