 Yes, I am still using my adult sippy cup. Good morning my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back I feel like I owe you guys an update because for one my cast color has changed Which means that I have been a doctor's appointment and we have learned some things, but I'll be honest with you guys. I don't feel like going into all of that today because it would require editing footage and I'm gonna build the suspense if you saw the video about is my leg being eaten by a zombie I now have the answer. You don't have the answer just yet But I'll leave it up to your imagination is is this cast shorter than the other one? Did the did the zombie eat some of my leg is my leg still auditioning for the walking dead or Is everything perfectly fine and would I not be making this video if it wasn't so I'm home alone today And I'm kind of done with this whole process of recovering and being casted And so I thought I would share with you guys why my leg isn't a cast for four For four weeks last thing I feel like I need to qualify. I wanted to feel pretty today. So I wore dangly earrings I didn't do anything else to feel pretty like you know put on clothes I like or take a shower, but I feel pretty with my earrings. So that's all that matters Yes, I am losing my mind at home. So the first time I had it amputated I did have it casted for two weeks as well But this is actually gonna stay on for another two weeks for a total of a month some doctors when they're doing Amputations don't involve casts at all. In fact, I would say most don't it just so Happens that both of the surgeons that I've chosen did want to do casting I don't really know why there's division in the medical world about to cast or not to cast by no The reason why my surgeons shared with me that they wanted to cast after amputation was two things first of all To minimize contractures, which is basically when you're when your muscle I believe kind of shortens itself because it's been in one position too long Oftentimes that'll happen if you keep your leg elevated and iced for like two weeks straight And it's kind of like bent, you know at a certain angle and the muscle shortens up to that I'm gonna put the actual definition up on screen because I think that was probably a terrible job of Describing what a muscle contracture is but secondly it also minimizes infection It's protected in the cast if you have any falls or bumps or anything like that So with that being said, why is mine casted for two more weeks? Why am I cursed to this life of having another hard cast one of the procedures that I had during my last Amputation it's weird to say my last amputation, but it was called targeted muscle Reintervation it's often called TMR and this was done by a plastic surgeon and it was funny when I actually met with him I had no idea why I was meeting with a plastic surgeon I thought it was to maybe like just deal with the skin issues that I was having But little did I know that this guy was like the guy when it came to TMR in my area In fact when I looked up videos on YouTube the first video that I found was him talking about TMR We've got a newer technique for especially above elbow amputations That really is Designed to help maximize the use of a prosthesis Dr. Schneer was in charge of the TMR surgery the targeted muscle Reintervation definitely instilled confidence what we do is we take the nerves that go down to the hand and We hook those in to muscles Targeted muscle renovation TMR is a new surgical procedure that reassigns nerves that once controlled the arm in the hand So obviously that's not the case with me what they did is they did it in the leg But this procedure was developed to help upper arm amputees from my understanding this procedure was pioneered to help people better control upper limb prosthetics So essentially as it's been described to me they splice a nerve Into a muscle and so now that nerve that used to just be cut from an amputation is Intervated into that muscle and controls it or sits in it now what they happen to find as they did these procedures Is that phantom pain like plummeted people reported that phantom pain got so much better It decreases the formation of neuromas which are super super painful which I believe I had one of those from my understanding It's still a fairly new thing It's not done everywhere And I feel really lucky that there was someone in my area who specializes in this and does it routinely And this is like what he does but the reason that this is in a hard cast for four weeks is Because I cannot bend my knee because of the way that he spliced my nerves back into my muscles If I bend in my knee it could risk tearing them that could risk moving where they are And it's really important that they stay in place It was funny when I had my cast off yesterday and my sweet mother was like Why don't you bend your knees some to like you know because it's been a cast so long It must feel horrible and I was like oh you have no idea how horrible it feels to keep my leg Straight for two weeks straight and the doctors were like no God. No you can't do that So I had to keep it totally straight even as I was like going to x-ray and coming back And I think it did a very good job of not moving it at all So we have two more weeks of it being perfectly straight because of the targeted muscle Reintervation and I really hope that it helps with phantom pain and phantom weird sensation You may have seen in one of my other recent videos that phantom pain has come back But that's not an issue at all because nerves take a really long time to heal And so this generally kicks in around month three or four or five or six from my understanding So there's nothing to really worry about it. It works for most people. It doesn't work for everybody I hope that I'm in the most people category. So that is why I'll have a cast for two more weeks I would like to give a huge shout out to Zach my prosthetist who ordered purple special for me I feel like purple is just so much happier to have than a plain white cast white casts are so like Anti-bacterial and hospital and if you have to have your chopped off leg in a cast might as well be a happy color So Zach props to you for this thing you thanks guys for listening a huge shout out to all of my patrons over on Patreon for supporting this channel and helping me do what I do if you want to check out what that is and what the benefits are I'll leave a link down below and thank you so much for spending a few minutes listening to me talk about TMR and make terrible jokes You're helping me stay sane during this time of recovery and it means a lot to me that you would spend a few minutes Out of your day here with me. So thanks guys Oh, and if you have any questions feel free to leave them down below and I will answer them the best that I can I'll also put some links in the description to articles that talk about TMR A lot better than I did here, but hopefully I at least did it a little bit of justice I love you. I'm thinking of you and I will see you in the next video