 This is the picture the day before I had my amputation surgery. Oh, it's so weird to see it move. I'm sorry, it's just really, it's so weird. Hello there, my beautiful, lovely, talented, intelligent internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you so much for joining me here today. Today, we are going to be doing a reaction video that I am feeling weird about, not bad, just weird. If you don't know anything about me or my story, I am a baloney amputee. Here's my prosthesis. I just ripped it off my body so I could sit more comfortably. And I have been a baloney amputee for not even two years yet. So most of my adult and child life has been spent with two legs, one that hurt a lot and wasn't fantastic, but two legs. And so we are going to be going through old videos and photos of when I was a two legged. That's right, two meat legs, not one and a half. It's not like I haven't seen pictures of me with two legs ever since becoming a one legged, but I've only really seen them like in passing. And even when I do, I'm like, oh, that's, I had two feet, that's really fricking weird. So I have my phone out charged and ready, and we are going to be going through these photos and videos first. I just wanted to give a quick shout out to all my patrons over on Patreon. Thank you for supporting this channel. Thank you for supporting and sponsoring this video. If you're interested in becoming a member of my Patreon community, you can check out the link on screen or in the description. Let's just, let's do this. Let's rip the band-aid off. All right, that's a photo of me hiking earlier today. Let's go back to 2018, the year that I, you know, had the leg chopping. Okay, so this, this is a photo of me giving a speech at a local event just about exactly a month before my amputation and looking at myself standing there and looking at the way that the jeans fall on my ankle. I can recall the sensation of how uncomfortable even like light fabric was against my skin and against the scars right there. Like I was obviously standing, I could do it, but it was not super fun. It was not really pleasant and it's so weird. Look at that two-legged. Yeah, this was really close to when I had my surgery. These are photos of me before I broke my ankle. I can like barely remember life before then. This horse's name was Carly and she was amazing. She basically taught me how to ride. Look at me, I was so little and cute. People ask me all the time if I don't like horses or if I'm like scared of them now because I fell off a horse broke my ankle and now I'm here without a leg. But I always tell them like it wasn't the horse's fault that I fell off of her. I really, I miss horses so much. I can't wait to get back on them sometime soon. This is a photo that was taken when I went up to Denver for a quick like weekend trip with my husband. I don't know why I call him my husband like it's so formal with Brian, you know Brian, but take a look at my right leg there. Do you see how like, ah, swollen and weird my ankle looked there? Those are some super cute shoes by the way. You can see one of the scars from one of the many surgeries I had right on the side there but it's uncomfortable to look at. Just so you know, everyone's happy in this picture. This is not like screams of agony. I went on a retreat with Break the Silence against domestic violence and I was in a boot at that time because I was recovering from the last ankle surgery that I had and it didn't go well. So this is them carrying me down the hill because we were doing like a big photo shoot, right? I couldn't get down the hill because the angle hurt too much and so they all picked me up and carried me and it was super sweet. Oh my gosh, okay. You may have already seen this but this is the picture the day before I had my amputation surgery. Oh, I had the little scissor marks there because I thought that was funny it was my way of coping with things and then everyone came over and signed their names, little goodbye notes to my ankle. Oh, it's so weird to see it move. I'm sorry, it's just really, the problem is I can feel it like looking at these photos and videos I can feel how uncomfortable that part of my body was. Yeah, I think this is probably the video where most people found this channel from because it went out to a lot of people but that was everyone's goodbye notes to my ankle and my own breakup note with it. Oh my God, seeing the scars there. The sensation is so clear in my mind. I don't wanna just keep saying weird but this is so bizarre to watch. I don't know why I took this video, riveting. Look at that messed up little foot. Ah yes, when I took my feet for their goodbye tour through the mountains. You can see that I always walk with it out to the side a little bit. It's kind of hard to see in that video but I wanted to feel dirt and I wanted to do all the things that I knew I wasn't gonna be able to do and so I took my ankle on a bit of a tour around my state knowing that I was gonna be saying goodbye pretty soon. I'm really glad I did that. That was very therapeutic. Okay, so this photo was when I was trying to sell some of the clothes that I had that I didn't wear anymore on Poshmark and so I was like posing with them. So you see how my jean is pulled up a little bit and yes, that is my messed up angle. It's just that I was taking a picture in a mirror and so it's reversed. So it looks like my left side is my right side but I pulled the jeans up just a little bit so that the fabric wouldn't be touching those really painful spots because even friggin' jean fabric caused a lot of discomfort and pain. All right, let's go back in time a little bit further. Ooh, okay, so this was, okay, so this is an x-ray of my ankle, it's an x-ray I don't know, many years ago and you can see that the screw embedded in there and the ankle fusion and then the fibula which they sawed through and they left hanging which I guess they sometimes do in ankle fusions which is what I had. Man, I was sure used to seeing those x-rays. I can tell you that much. Okay, quick question. Does anyone else drink their coffee like this? I feel like a normal person drinks their coffee like this. Let me know if you're a weirdo like I am. What do we got here? What do we got? Okay, so this was one of the last times I ever went hiking. Brian and I sitting up there on top of a rock riveting photo but I got those hiking shoes and I was only able to use them twice. I went on a mountain hike once and then I went on this hike with a friend of ours and my husband and I had to bail on the hike because my ankle hurt too bad but I did get like a mile into it which I was very impressed with and then I was just in a ton of pain the rest of the day which technically wasn't worth it but hey, I have good memories from that day even with the pain. Oh, this is my second set of wedding pictures. It's a long story. You can see my little ankle hanging out under there. Okay, so I always wore flat always because I couldn't bend my ankle because it was fused and even like a little bit of a heel would put a lot of pressure and a lot of pain into my ankle into those little joints in there and so I found those cute little flats. I really liked them. They were like lacy white shoes. Sorry boys if I'm boring you. But I was so specific with the flats that I could wear because they needed to not touch like too high on my ankle that the side needed to be not too hard but like hard enough to like actually keep the shoe on and so it was a whole process. So this was going for a walk at a nearby park. We took the three doggo's out. I can never really go more than like a mile max even on a really good day but look at us, we're so cute. So I'm actually really proud of this photo and the story behind it. So in Colorado we have, I think it's 54, 14ers which are mountains that summit above 14,000 feet and living in Colorado, like anyone who's active and has the ability to is generally tried at least one of them. I have a friend who is like eight away from completing every single one of them. Hiking up that kind of a mountain is really challenging depending on where you start and I wanted to do one gosh darn it and this was from like two years before I actually had my amputation. I knew that hiking as 14er was going to wreck my body. But you know, you learn to push through things sometimes to an unhealthy extent. I bought a pair of hiking boots and we got a backpack and went with a couple friends and I made it to the top of that darn 14er. I remember coming down because like the downward ankle angle on my ankle was always a lot more challenging for me. I just kind of, I think, I think, I remember it was very not great but I made it to the top and I was so proud to say that I was like a Coloradan and I'd finally done a 14er even though I paid dearly for it. Oh yes, so this is a photo for my CrossFit days. You can see I'm pretty muscular there. I was proud of those muscles but they've gone away. We don't have them anymore. An old, old, old friend of mine, we knew each other since literally we were two months old, came into town and I took her up to a reservoir nearby and we just walked around for a while and took some photos. I think this was back in 2015 which was five years ago, that's bizarre. I'm just gonna throw this one up here because it's so darn cute. This is Sophie when she's a little baby and I'm up at my parents house with her with two meat legs. Okay, so this photo is actually kind of meaningful to me because one of the reasons I made the decision that I made to have a leg amputation instead of holding on to a body part that hurt a lot was because of things like this. This was from five or six years ago. I love hiking. I would take my dogs all the time. Brian and I would go like every weekend. This picture in particular is from 11 Mile Canyon which is like an hour, hour and a half from where we live and I stopped being able to do stuff like that and if I could do it, it was incredibly painful. I was just like gritting my teeth, popping tons of pain medication and doing my best to get through it but this past weekend I didn't do a video about it because I wanted to just be a day with my husband. We went back there to 11 Mile Canyon and we went hiking on my prosthetic and I did a really good job. I didn't hurt at the end of it. I was up and about on rocky terrain for an hour, hour and a half and it was the same place that this photo was taken so it was cool going back there like five, six years later and being like I can do this better now. I'm getting there. Okay, you can't see my foot in this picture but this is a photo of me at ankle injection which they didn't have to put me under for most of the they just did an injection into my ankle under a live x-ray usually took like just a few minutes in the actual surgical room and I would have those as often as I could. Side note, it turns out it's not good for your joints to have quarter zone injections into them like every three to six months. Who would have thought? In any case, I had a lot of them and they always make you get up in like the full hospital gear even though you're only gonna be there for like two hours. Okay, so this was a photo that I was holding out to show you guys. I remember this feeling so very well. I've always told you guys I'm a really active person like I find a lot of identity and the things that I'm able to do and slowly but surely as my ankle got worse I couldn't do those things anymore and this was one of the proudest physical moments I've ever had. I won bronze at a jiu-jitsu tournament and when I won bronze, I was like, yes! And Brian who was coaching me at the time like freaked out and everyone looked really confused because like I got third place, right? Like, okay, shouldn't you want to get first but I've like never won anything in my life and I was so freaking excited and you can see it, you can see it on my face. I'm really happy. I trained jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts fighting. Well, I trained MMA specifically for two years until I couldn't anymore because of my brain and my ankle but those two years were absolutely amazing. I loved being able to fight. I loved being able to push myself. Thankfully, I can still do jiu-jitsu and that's something that I did much longer than MMA. Look at my ridiculous face there. I'm way too excited. Nah, joy isn't a bad thing. Yes, another ankle injection photo. So this is a live x-ray of my ankle when they were actually injecting this. I think this was a cortisone injection too unless I mistaken. It looks crazy. You can like see the screw in there but yeah, that's the needle stuck into my ankle which you are fully awake for it. Like I said, it's not the worst thing ever. It's not super fun but they do a good job of numbing you up most of the time. This is strange to watch. So this is again, one of those videos of like I wanted my foot to feel all the sensations that I would never feel again on that side and it's a funny video just to watch me squeezing my toes into some carpet but look at those 10 toes. Look at those 10 little piggies. Aww. Now my 10 little piggies are, you know, five real ones and five plastic ones that are fused together. The don't try too hard at looking like an actual foot. Man, that is crazy to look back on. It's really uncomfortable, not bad. Like I said, it's uncomfortable to look at all those photos because of the sensation that I can still very clearly remember but it's really cool. I took and I still take a lot of pride in pushing myself and doing things. A lot of those photos are me doing things even though my ankle was not a big fan even though I was hurting and didn't feel great about it. I was still able to do some things. A lot of people ask me, you know, how having a fused ankle was. Sometimes it was actually okay. There was a lot of pain. It would flare up for weeks at a time. It got worse over time but there were times where it was honestly okay. Like I did mixed martial arts fighting. That is not low contact. That's a full contact sport and I was able to do it for almost two years. Now, did I do anything good for my ankle? Heck no. Did I have to stop eventually partly because my ankle, very much yes but I mean I was pushing myself really hard but I was able to do certain things. Like if I had never done any sports or anything like that, I would have still been hiking and getting outside and going for walks and moving. I couldn't go for a run. One of the reasons why I really, really want to get a running blade for my prosthetic. One day, one day. But I did as much as I could, right? And I'm glad that I did as much as I could because it's good to have memories from different years of doing things that brought me joy even if it was a modified way of doing that or even if I could only do it for half an hour instead of three hours. Like if it was a mile walk instead of a 10 mile walk. Over time, I learned to take better care of my body and not push myself past the point that I should stop at which is a delicate learning process to put into place because it turns out pushing through extreme amounts of pain is not a great character quality. It's not something that makes you a better person. It just makes you hurt more. And it took me a decent amount of time to learn that but I'm glad that I learned it then because now, now that I'm adjusting to a prosthetic leg, I do know how to set boundaries for myself and when to stop and all of that. Seeing myself with that ankle and visually just seeing it, right? I remember how it felt if something lightly touched that side of my ankle. I remember the feeling that it would have when it would click. I don't know what was clicking in there. They never figured it out but something would click and shift and all of a sudden I would be in horrible pain for a few minutes then it would kind of gradually die down so it would just be in a lot of pain the rest of the day. I can remember what it felt like to have those injections. It felt like so much pressure in your ankle all of a sudden. I mean, they weren't bad but it was just something that had to be done. I remember all the modifications and things that I did differently and there's nothing wrong with that. You get creative, right? But looking back on those pictures, people will ask me if I regret this decision and it's a complicated thing, right? Like I have a lot of feelings about being an amputee but no, I don't regret it and looking back at those photos, I'm reminded of exactly why I did this. I did this so that I could take photos like this hiking again, not in a lot of pain. I'm so grateful that I'm finally getting to the place where I'm able to do things that I want to do that I'm not just dealing with like setbacks and more surgeries even after amputation. I don't know how long that'll last. Hopefully forever, who knows? But I know that I'm very much enjoying it in this moment. I'm really, really grateful for it. It's not something I take for granted but I'm gonna take advantage of the joy while I can. So thank you so much for sitting with me and watching me look through these photos. Maybe it's more weird to me than it is to you. That's probably the case but I really appreciate you guys sitting with me. Thank you again to my patrons for sponsoring this video. I really appreciate each and every one of you when I also do not take you for granted. So thank you for being here. Like I said at the beginning if you're interested in what Patreon is or how you can be a member of that community check out the link on screen or down below 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 anyone in the world doing absolutely anything and you chose to hang out with me for a few minutes. That means a lot to me. Thank you. I love you guys. I'm thinking about you and I'll see you in the next video. Bye guys.