 more and windier than I thought it was going to be. Got that windswept look going on. Hello there, my beautiful, lovely, talented, delightful internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. I had in my mind this cool shot of me parking my car and getting out and you see my prosthetic as I walk over and I pick up the camera and real cool like I start talking to you. And then I realized it's way too freaking cold and wanted to be doing that. So change of plans. You may have noticed from that opening shot that I am a below the knee amputee, meaning I'm missing a body part. It got chopped off. It got thrown away. I don't have it anymore. One of the most consistent and common questions I get as an APT is no leg, how drive? If I'm missing a leg, specifically a right leg, which is what people in my country use to drive with for the most part, physically am I capable of driving? Legally am I allowed to drive? What does driving actually look like for me? And I wanted to dedicate a video today to this question because while there is a simple answer and if you've been on my channel for a little while, you might know that the answer is yes, I can still drive. It's a little bit more complicated than you might think. So allow me to fill you in on all the little details when it comes to driving as a below the knee amputee. There's a guy, there's a guy walking his dog that is just staring at me. He's just staring at me over there as I talk to myself in my car. Cool, so allow me today to fill you in on all of the details of what it's like driving as an APT, adjustments I make, how I actually do it. And if you are an amputee or you know an amputee, I'll throw in a few tips that have been helpful for me along the way. Real quick, before we return to the rest of this video, I wanted to take a quick moment to thank Surfshark VPN for sponsoring this video. Yet again, they are a returning sponsor here because this is a service that I actually use. 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Lucky for me and I am grateful, but it is a little strange to me considering other regulations that are in place that I'm totally fine to drive whenever I feel like it after losing a body part. Now there are some states that differ on this little bit, but I am super grateful that I live here and I did not have to retake any kind of test. I did start driving again, probably about a month and a half after amputation. I do know amputees who have started driving like within a few days that terrified me because I was on a lot of drugs and I was in a lot of pain and frankly, I didn't have to drive, which was a huge privilege that I had. I could just stay home and so I just stayed home and healed. But when I started to drive again about a month and a half after amputation, I didn't have my prosthetic leg yet, which means I only had my left foot. So how did that work out? Luckily I had another thing in my favor here. I guess we can call it in my favor. Since I was 13, I've been having ankle issues before losing my ankle. So when I was 15 and 16 and learning to drive, I had always driven with my left foot because my right one was either in a cast or a boot or it hurt or it didn't feel good. And so I could always drive with either of my feet but usually I would drive with my left foot and I would just kind of tuck my right one underneath. So once that got rid of my right foot, I was good to go. So when it comes to actually working the pedals, I use my left foot but there are three different ways that I drive depending on the day, how I'm feeling and the circumstances of said driving. Before we get into those three different ways of driving, I do wanna note, as people have asked me, do I drive with my prosthetic foot? Cause now I technically have a right foot. And while I think this could be possible, it's definitely not safe for me. I feel like I have no control of the pedals. I tried it literally once on an empty street and I was like, nope, we're never doing that again. Because my prosthetic leg is just metal and I have no control over bending it, I can't bend my ankle to accelerate or hit the brake, right? So the only way that I have of controlling the pedals is by lifting my leg with my hip and my knee and trying to maneuver it feels not only just super uncomfortable because holding your leg up at your hip, like try doing that. Try just holding your leg up at your hip for like 20 seconds even. You'll start to feel a little bit of tension. Try doing that for like an hour long drive. No, thank you. But like I said, I also felt very unsafe because I don't know, I could just see like my foot getting hooked underneath one of the pedals and then trying to get it out and getting in accident. Maybe I overthink things, but I do not drive with my prosthetic foot. So let's get into the three ways that I do drive. Number one, super easy. I just scoot my leg over. My car is enough room that I can kind of just tilt my hips a little bit to the side. I scoot over, I'm able to drive with my left foot and we're good to go. However, that does mean that I have to bend my knee pretty significantly to get my prosthetic leg out of the way to make room for my left foot that is driving. Sometimes the back of my prosthetic socket starts cutting into the back of my knee and it starts going numb, which is a fun time for everybody. So it's not always comfortable, especially for longer periods of time. So option number two is bending my prosthetic leg underneath my meat leg, which works really great except for the fact that there are metal parts on my prosthetic leg and resting my good leg on top of those for extended periods of time. Again, not super comfortable. Also having it bent at that angle, it can start to get sore or kind of feel pressure in different places in my prosthetic socket. So option number three is the big winner, especially for longer drives, which is to take my leg off altogether. This is a special privilege I have. I can just rip my leg off if it's not comfortable. However, I can only do that in very specific circumstances, which is one of the biggest bummers about being in amputee. You may have noticed in the opening shot there when I was complaining about it being cold that I was wearing shorts and you may have thought to yourself, Joe, maybe if you dressed for the weather in Colorado when it's been snowing, you wouldn't be so cold and you would be correct. With that being acknowledged, if I am wearing pants, I can't take my leg off if I'm wearing jeans or anything that's like below my knee. I'm stuck with my leg being on unless I wanna walk around half naked, which I'm not gonna do because it's illegal and also super uncomfortable. So the vast majority of the time I'm wearing shorts of some kind. I used to really like the cold months here. Now I struggle a little bit more with them because either I'm wearing clothes that are appropriate for the weather and I'm uncomfortable or I'm wearing clothes that are not appropriate for the weather and I can take my leg off but I'm still uncomfortable because I'm cold. I'm still working out the details there, guys. I do know that I could go to a tailor and get jeans and I could get a zipper seam put in my jeans but that sounds expensive and a lot of work and the zipper would have to basically go up to my hip to effectively work and I haven't gone on that adventure yet, perhaps that will be another video for another time. But like I was saying, I can only take my leg off if I'm wearing shorts or something that allows me to take my leg off. So in those circumstances, I will take my leg off to drive. It's pretty comfortable, all things considered. The only bummer there is though that when I'm getting out of the car, I have to get my leg back on so that takes an extra second. However, an added bonus there is I also get to weird people out. Brian and I took a road trip this summer due to a family death and when we got out of the car at a gas station, like took my leg off and sat it on the ground beside me to get it back on. This poor young man at the pump across from me stared in horror as he saw a leg just be placed upon the ground. It was pretty fun. I'm not gonna lie. So it does slow me down a little bit like getting in and out of the car if I'm gonna take my leg off. So I don't usually do that unless I'm driving for more than like 20 minutes. A 20-minute drive, I can be comfortable sitting like this. But once I get to like 30, 45 minutes, my leg is not comfortable being pushed to the side. It's not comfortable being bent under another leg and I need to take it off. One random tip that has really helped me with driving and being comfortable is to put the back heater on even if it's warm outside. It's like a built-in heating pad. Dealing with a prosthetic leg, my lower back gets a lot of tension and tightness. It's just the nature of the beast. And so when I'm sitting for an extended period of time driving a car, popping that back heater on is absolutely fantastic. So if you happen to have one of those in your car, consider using it as a heating pad whenever you're driving. And speaking of driving, we haven't actually done that much driving in this video. So I thought we'd go on a short adventure with my puppy dogs. Something that they absolutely love is Puppachino's, which is basically a free cup of whipped cream from a drive-thru coffee shop. And being able to go and do this is the highlight of my puppy dog's week. I guarantee that their joy will make you smile. So let's go for a drive, listen to some awesome music and make those puppies happy. So before we bring the puppies on an adorable adventure, I did wanna reflect on one thing about being an ABT and driving that's been really important to me. So though it's definitely taken longer than I wanted it to, I've been able to regain a lot of my mobility back after becoming an ABT. My prosthetic leg is working pretty well. I'm able to try and do new activities. Some days are better than others, but for the most part, you know, when my leg is on, I'm able to do stuff, but there is still a part of me that feels stuck sometimes, like getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and hopping in the dark because it's way too much work to try to put my leg on or the days where my leg is too swollen or weird feeling or just hurts and putting my leg on just isn't an option. There are these moments where I feel so trapped by my own body. It's something that I'm still working through and I imagine I'll probably be working through for most of the rest of my life, but driving. Driving is the one place where I've never had to feel stuck or trapped or restricted because I can go. I can go places. I might not be able to get out of the car and easily walk places depending on the day, but I can go drive into the mountains or up to Denver or to get some coffee or whatever it is. And the fact that I'm missing a leg really doesn't change much of anything. And it's so important for me to have those things in my life, to have those things where I'm like being an ABT doesn't change things or affect me that much. Like I've gotten used to it in so many other areas of my life, but it's awesome to have these unadulterated moments of just being and not having to overthink things and not having to think about the next step. And I'm so grateful that I still have this ability. Okay, with that saffiness out of the way, let's actually go get the puppies. How are you, crazy puppies? Do you really want to go for a car ride? Yeah? Yeah? Can we also get a couple of pop cups? Excellent, we'll see you out on here. All right, thank you. Look how little she looks. She looks so little over here. So this is my little monkey. My monkey loves riding front and center. And because the shepherds are too big, it's always them in the back. If you remember of the Patreon crew, you will have seen us come out and get Puppetinos a couple weeks ago now. I do little pet videos over on Patreon, some bonus videos. So if you want to see more of these guys and kicks the cat and the rats, check it out. We got the good guys. What do we have here, my little friends? Look at this ridiculously attentive audience I have. They know, they know what's coming next. Oh, they're doing, they're very upset about it. So the best part about pop cups is I always take a little bit for myself. I'm sorry monkey. Here you go. Good girl. Take it. Good girl. Is that good? Did you like that? Are you guys ready? I think they are. That is it for me for today, guys. I hope I satisfied your curiosity when it comes to driving and amputees. But if you have additional questions, pop them in the comment section down below or comments. I'd love to hear your thoughts. A big thank you again to today's sponsor. Thank you so much for partnering with me on this video. As I noted, check everything out, linked down below. A huge debt of gratitude to all of my patrons over on Patreon. Thank you so much for your continued support there. It means the world to me. It helps more than you will ever know and enabling me to be able to make these videos for you if you're interested in Patreon or what that is or what it looks like. It's basically a platform where you can support your favorite creators and in return, you get access to a pretty cool community and also some behind-the-scenes things. But there are like cute pet videos that I post occasionally and some other behind-the-scenes things and polls you can participate in. So check it out. Link on screen or linked down below if you might be interested. And to you watching this video right now, thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today. You could be anywhere in the world doing anything. 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. And her from the sky.