 We have made it to day five post-surgery and I have made it upstairs all by myself because I was in desperate need of some caffeine. So we are making some English breakfast tea. Close competitor for first place on my favorites list between English and Irish breakfast tea. Is that a joke? To all my tea drinkers out there, are you guys milk and sugar ignore tea people or are you purists? Today is a milk and sugar kind of day. So as I am allowing my tea to steep, I thought I would talk about something that I realized I have completely neglected to address and I have a prop which I think you guys might find interesting. Why was there a screw in my amputated leg or the part of my leg that was still attached to my body? So like my residual limb, my stump. I talked in my surgery video which I will link above and below about how they were able to remove the screw. I was really happy because there was risk that it might start unscrewing itself, so on and so forth. But if they are just chopping off a limb, where would a screw go? Why would you even need a screw? So let's talk about that. Comforting and warm tea check. So let's talk about why there was a screw through my leg. I'll pop an x-ray up on the screen. So this was taken maybe a month and a half ago. Why was there a screw through my leg? This is not common for all below knee amputees and I don't know that this ever happens for above knee amputees. I feel like the last five months have definitely been an education and one of the things that I learned is that not all amputations are created equal and I mean that also in that you know it's going to be different for every person and what is right is going to be different for every person. But there are different kinds of procedures. Different ways legs can be amputated and different body parts can be amputated. So in my case, the kind of procedure that was used, the amputation technique that was used was called an ERDL, E-R-T-L. Quick side note because I realized I just did that on camera. I have a weird tick in that I will often fingerspell things randomly, usually to myself. I learned the American Sign Language alphabet when I was a kid and so I think it's almost like a, it's like an unconscious thing. I will like, if I'm saying ERDL, like E-R-T-L, I will, my hands will just do things. Anyways, moving on. So this particular technique can be done actually a variety of ways. So basically what happens in this particular technique is they will take a piece of bone from whatever part of your leg they chopped off and they will put it on its side and screw it in between your tibia and your fibula. So it looks like this. I hope I did that right on screen. Essentially it creates a bone bridge. They don't always use a screw. Sometimes I believe that they can use stitching. I don't know how you stitch bones together honestly. I believe that that was the original technique used. I know that it's generally like better long term if you don't use a screw. However, I do not know how you get bones to fuse together without a screw. So it's very common practice to actually use a screw. My surgeon used a screw. That's right. This screw was inside my body. I can't lie to you guys. It actually wasn't. It was a wood screw that I found in my garage. I was a screw. Where would I be? I semi-organized the garage and now I can't find anything. Success! I tried. I tried really hard to get the screw back from my body and if I tried really hard I mean I called the hospital after the fact like two days after surgery because I was like I need that back. Like I really want that back. I could make something cool. Like I could make a bracelet or a necklace or something neat and slightly morbid but cool out of it. And I could show you guys. Yeah, that was a really late afterthought and I called this surgeon on call and he was like yeah it's against hospital policy. We couldn't do that anyways even if we still had it and I got really sad. So this is just a fake prep representation of what was in my life. So actually it is probably a fairly accurate representation. Lame. I know. So there was a screw in my leg so that bone bridge would fuse. That bone bridge makes it so that my amputation is a lot stronger. Otherwise you kind of have I guess you could say chopsticks coming down. Like both your bones, your tibia and your fibular coming down and they just end. That's okay too. That definitely works. That's been a technique that has been used on many people for I mean I guess centuries probably. But because I'm younger because I'm active this definitely provides a lot more stability. Someone else actually asked about this general concept in the comment section a couple of days ago about like why can't they just make something permanent like screw something into your bones and then make it come out and they actually have that. They have a procedure called osteointegration where essentially they put a rod into your actual bone and it comes out of your skin and then will attach to basically a permanent prosthetic. That is not commonly practiced yet and I was literally about to tell you I don't know that it happens with bologna amputees but then I was like Joe do some research first and it does actually. It looks really interesting for bologna amputees. Check this out. It is more common in other countries and I think Australia does have kind of the leading centers for this stuff. So a fellow YouTuber actually did have osteointegration done. I watched her videos before I ever had my amputation. Her name is Ashton Murdoch. I'll link her videos down below and she had to go overseas to Australia to have this procedure done. There are definitely risks with it. I think there is a little ways for it to come to be more commonly practiced but it's super promising. I think it's a really cool idea and I would love to see it more commonly practiced if it's a safe thing to do. It's like super interesting isn't it? It feels like it kind of looks like the future doesn't it? It would be a lot faster to put on and take off prosthetics if you just like clipped it in to yourself rather than having to go through the kit and caboodle that we have to go through to put on prosthetics the other way. Some of the reasons why osteointegration is not more commonly practiced are definitely the risks. Infection risk is really high because it's literally like coming out of your skin. It's out of your bone and then out of your skin. So you can understand where there are risks with that. Skin breakdown is a serious concern and breakage of internal and external parts due to how the pressure loading of everything. So I think there is more research to be done but it definitely works for some people. So there are a lot of different techniques that can be used depending on what kind of amputee you are, depending on what your lifestyle is and where in the world you are, but the kind of procedure I had was an hurdle procedure. Whenever I say that, I think I'm saying hurdle weirdly. So that is why I had not this screw but a very similar screw through my leg. Unfortunately, one of the big problems with actually keeping this in though it does provide stability is that it starts like unscrewing itself in your leg which you can understand is really painful and then you actually have to have surgery again to have that taken out, which is why I begged my doctor like please for the love of God, if it is safe, just take it out now so we can avoid surgery in the future. A friend of mine had surgery with the same surgeon actually and ended up having her screw back out, I think it was about a year or a year and a half after her amputation and so I really wanted to avoid that happening so I was incredibly grateful that he could just get it done all in one fell swoop. Also want to let you guys know my leg continues to heal really well. I am feeling much better on day, I think it's five today than I did even yesterday. Strength is coming back, everything's going wonderfully and I super appreciate you guys being here and following my journey. By the way, random question of the day for you guys, if you had surgery and had hardware taken out, would you want it back? Because I really did, I was bummed that I couldn't get it back and I've also had screws back before when I had all my ankle surgeries, I had lots of screws in there, the big old plate and I got those back because it was through a different hospital system and it was also years ago and I kept those for a very long time until I lost them in a house fire which was a bummer. So what about you guys, would you want them back if you had surgery and had hardware removed? And with that, I bid you adieu for today and bye to this screw which is actually a wood screw that we use to fix our fence when it fell over in a windstorm not that long ago. I love you guys, I'm thinking about you and I'll talk to you soon. Bye guys.