 Hey guys, my name is Jordan and right now I have two legs but in a few months I may only have one. I am actively in the process of trying to decide what the best option for my future is and I may be having my leg amputated in a few months and that is a weird sentence I don't think is actually sunk in just yet and so I am recording this video to start my journey and if I do decide to have this leg amputation I will probably start publishing these videos as part of sort of my journey of healing because I have found it really healing to me with other issues in my life to talk to a camera and helps me process through things and I have found it really helpful to hear other people's journeys other people's stories and so today is September 4th 2018 and I'm just going to start talking about my process in hopes that it will help me work through things and help someone else maybe somewhere so a little bit about a little bit about my story I had a really bad horseback riding accident when I was 13 I am now 27 during that horseback riding accident I shattered my ankle in a way that had orthopedic surgeons going gosh we've never seen this before it's never a good thing to excite surgeons and I had surgery then and then I had surgery two months later when they had to re-break my ankle because it healed wrong then I had an ankle fusion at 15 I had surgery after that I've had surgery after surgery after surgery trying to piece my ankle back together and get to stop hurting it's never really stopped hurting now for a few years it got to a place where I could really function and I could go hiking and horseback riding and I did MMA for two years and I was competitive and jiu-jitsu and that is a fine life like it hurt it was annoying who cares like that was fine by me but now things have progressed to a place over the last year and a half where I cannot do anything except like walk from like walk around my house and walk from my car to a building in back and even then it really hurts and I'm limping constantly and I'm in pain when I'm sitting still and it will not stop hurting and I cannot do anything I cannot do anything that I love and I can barely walk and so I was told in my most recent surgery in March that essentially I have no options left like after the surgery a few months later at the follow-up appointment my surgeon walked into the room was basically like how's it feeling I was like well it still sucks and he was like oh okay well you have no options left by that was basically our conversation and so I was really discouraged but I thought you know what that does not work for me and so I did a lot of research and I found a surgeon up in Denver who is very highly respected in his field and I met with him a couple weeks ago with my husband and he suggested another option which is a little risky but he said we could do an ankle fusion of the sub-tailor joint which is you have your ankle joint that you have your sub-tailor joint my ankle joint is fused so it doesn't exist anymore and we could fuse a sub-tailor joint and replace my ankle so I had an ankle replacement and that fusion the problem is there are no studies on how well that actually works because I've had over 10 surgeries in my life there it's just messed up in there the ankle is not a big joint and it's constantly swollen there's a ton of nerve damage in there and going in there and doing that severe of a surgery they don't know that would it would actually help and it would be a significant surgery with a lot of recovery time and learning to walk again because I haven't had an ankle joint in years and might just get me sort of walking for a few years if it worked and then I would have to have a leg amputation anyway so right now where I am I have been dealing with this for over half my life I have been having surgery after surgery after surgery for half my life trying to save a piece of my body that hurts constantly and I am wondering if the best option isn't just to admit where it is and if the fastest way to a life that I actually get to live is not just to have it amputated and I know that probably sounds bizarre to people and I know that a lot of people will probably comment that I've been sane or ungrateful and I'm not I'm really grateful for the fact that I have two legs and that I can walk but everything hurts all the time and it's affecting other joints in my body I have neck pain constantly in part because of it my knee is getting messed up because I walk differently because of it and I'm young and otherwise healthy and I don't have kids right now and I have a great support system so it makes sense to me to have a leg amputation now below the knee leg amputation I should clarify that instead of later and some people think I'm nuts for that but I'm meeting with a doctor on September 13th so in just a few days to discuss options and see where things go but I've been talking to the amputee community which has been amazing because there are a surprising number of people who have leg amputations when you really start talking to people and there's been a lot of support and a lot of answering questions and a lot of telling me to ask questions I wouldn't have even thought to ask and I don't know how to feel about all of this I think for a lot of people losing a limb sounds like the worst thing in the world and to me it doesn't right now but I think I'm just thinking about things from like a rational perspective like it makes sense to do this because it's the quickest way to a better life but I don't know how to measure the emotional impact of it the emotional impact of being a 27 year old girl with no leg so that's weird but I guess we'll just see how it goes we'll see what happens but I want to be active I want to be able to run again I haven't been able to do that since I was a little kid and I hope that that is an option I hope that's something that I can do and this is all kind of freaky and scary and frightening to think about but part of me is also excited at the possibility of maybe in two years like after the recovery is mostly done like being able to run and being able to do stuff and being alive with my dogs and even just freaking walk around the block without as much pain as I have right now so that's where I am and that's where my thought process is currently I'm sure we'll fluctuate fluctuate but thanks for listening I don't know if you personally are dealing with an amputation thinking about it know someone whatever it is but I just want to share my thoughts on where I am right now and what my story looks like at this point thanks guys I will talk to you soon I appreciate you listening bye