 Good evening my beautiful urnette friends. I am about to make myself some macaroni and cheese. It's not healthy It's not good for me, but it's what I feel like eating at this particular moment in time And so it's what I'm gonna do. I can be Easily one of the most bizarre parts of being an amputee is the fact that I never know if what's on my leg Should be there or shouldn't be there and I'll explain in just a moment when I take my leg off But I woke up this morning my leg was feeling weird like oddly itchy And then there was something odd on it and the pots about to boil over I should probably actually stir that So I woke up and there was this weird bump on the scar that's on the back of my leg from where they did the TMR procedure Which I'll give you guys an update on that in a couple weeks here I don't know if that's normal and then I noticed that there were markings on other parts of my leg And I don't know if that's normal I don't know if that's something where I should like stay off my leg for a while or if I should just panic and Assume that it means that I'm dying just kidding. It's it's not serious But now it's been really really itchy and weird all day and today is the day after I went to the Ninja Warrior gym So maybe maybe it's just angry Maybe it's just upset and then weirdly my socket has been like pinching the back of my leg Which it's never done before like it's always hurt at the bottom of my leg And now it's hurting at the back like behind my knee, and I don't know why I had this naive Assumption pre-surgery that once you got a leg you kind of had the leg Well, I'm very spot-lit right now I guess I kind of assumed that once you had a fit that worked right like yeah You had to modify it some but it's literally a moving target every day, and that's just weird like some days my Residual limb will fit right into my socket no big deal And then other days I have to like work to stuff my leg in there because some nights My leg is really swollen and other days It's not and you know if I had too much salt the day before I can impact that or weather changes And it's just this bizarre guessing game, and I never know what what it's gonna bring sometimes. That's fine sometimes It's funny sometimes. It's overwhelming and right now I'm just gonna eat macaroni and cheese and forget about it for a moment, and then we're gonna take a look at what my leg Actually looks like So dinner is hot now Yeah, but the issue is that my leg really hurts So I'm gonna go ahead and take it off and fingers crossed my macaroni and cheese will still be warm when I get back Yeah, I forgot a spoon Yes, I know it looks awkward to like sit on the toilet and talk to you guys, but I promise the seat is down So I'm gonna take my leg off here. It is really hurting I just learned a better version of the TikTok dance that I learned a few videos ago I have a friend who is an amazing dancer. Thank you, Erin I actually taught me some of the moves and so I've been practicing them and that was really fun But I think it aggravated the pain I was already having today So we're gonna pop a little sunshine off here and see what we can see I always keep my leg in this room and like all my leg supplies just because of the dog hair Dog hair is hard to get off of all of this So I just try to keep them as far away as possible. Don't get me wrong Dog hair still litters everything I own including my leg and my liners, but at least it's minimized The front looks pretty good might be a little bit hard to tell but I woke up this morning to things like this and that and this weird line and that weird bump That's actually a scar. You see the part right in the middle there where it's like extra red. I don't know what that is I don't know where it came from. I'm not sure exactly what it is. It itches. It kind of hurts I should probably stay off my leg for a day. So I may give that a shot. I'll probably send a picture to my prosthetist It's so weird to take pictures of your residual limb and then send them to your doctor Never thought I'd be doing that in my life, but here we are yeah So weird things pop up on my leg and on my skin and I try to keep it as clean as possible But if any amputees out there have any suggestions, please let me know. I'm very open to hearing them Oh, it feels a little bit better with my leg off though. That's for sure I go ahead and let you in on some daily silly frustrations So the lights up there are still on and at that angle They'll end up like hurting my eyes and triggering a migraine if I'm sitting Down there on the couch with the puppies and I meant to turn them off before I took my leg off Because I have to get up the stairs and get up there and then turn off the light switches And I forgot so now I have to like hop crawl up the stairs. It's okay, Sophie She really wants me to pet her right now and that's like okay But it's just one of those things that takes extra brain power, especially at the end of a long day But it needs to be done Finally safe on the couch I always feel better after warm food My mom always used to tell me that you should have one warm meal a day and in college I was like mom cereal for every meal is just fine. Turns out she was right. Thanks mom So I want to talk for just a second about the weird discrepancy of life right now Like I mentioned yesterday I went to the ninja warrior gym and I did some really cool stuff like way more than I thought I'd be able to do I Look back over the footage and I'm legitimately so proud of myself and like mind blown that I was able to do as Much as I could and I look at that as a snapshot in time and I'm like damn I can do anything like that's so cool. But then there's the rest of the time there's every morning when I wake up and Have to hop around until I can get my leg on and I realize that there are ways around that But it's difficult and I won't go into that right now And I can't sit comfortably at my desk with my leg on because of how I sit And so I have to wear clothes that I can take it on and off all the time with and there's just a lot of little things That I look at videos like training for the 5k where I walked a mile and then going to the ninja gym Where I'm doing really cool stuff. It's so cool to be able to do those things It's also such a weird discrepancy to then wake up the next day and feel so Disabled and I almost feel like that's like a dirty word or something I shouldn't say but that's Legitimately how I feel like when I'm out doing stuff I don't feel any different than anyone else But when I have to use crutches or I have to like crawl places like a like a dog on the floor Believe me. I have nothing against dogs, but I am a person that it makes me feel like Weirdly less than not like I have less value like I talked about a few videos ago I absolutely know that I do but just different and less than and Uncomfortable and then if I'm having a good day and I can wear my leg And then I feel like I'm on my way to being unstoppable and I know that it'll get normal eventually But I'm wondering when that is and what that looks like like will there ever be a day that I wake up And I don't think about being an amputee and all the steps that I have to go through to assemble myself and making sure everything's in Place and making sure I'm bringing socks with me for the day I mean leg socks so I can like change as the volume in my leg changes and just thinking ahead all the time and Using all that brainpower like even going up the stairs to turn the light off, right? Like stuff like that will that always just be an extra step an extra thought or will there be a day where I Literally don't think about it as I'm saying that I kind of compare it to trauma that I've experienced where I Literally thought about it every single day for a solid seven years Like there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't it wasn't at least present in some way, right? I've gotten to the point now where it's not every single day I don't think that happened to me, right? And so maybe I'll get to that point and I hope to get to that point because right now It's uncomfortable and it's weird. It's funny because they always saw videos of Paralympic athletes doing crazy awesome things and you think oh my god They're more fit than I am and they can do everything But you don't think about the fact that they have to like go home or go to their hotel room at the end of the Day and take their leg off and then clean their leg liner and then clean their leg and make sure it's drying Properly and make sure they have all their equipment all that like that never crossed my mind I just think like wow they're doing cool things and as I've posted videos a lot of people have echoed that same Sentiment of like why I didn't realize there were so many steps to it and I didn't either still learning it and figuring it out I really want this to be normal But it's not yet and there are a lot of really cool highs that are happening and I love that But it's so weird to go from literally climbing across monkey bars and on it cool spinny wheel thing that I've never done before in my life to not being able to leave the couch and being in a lot of pain and Having to use crutches or hop and not knowing if I could use my leg the next day in like the same 12 hours It's just different so I'm just over four months out post second amputation now and when I say that out loud I realize that's actually a very short amount of time to get used to things So I think I'll probably get there I just don't quite know what it will look like if that makes sense I don't know adjusting to any kind of major life change is bizarre It's funny to me how much outside perception has an effect on me I'm not talking about like internet comments I'm just talking about like what other people think when other people make comments about like wow That's just like a part of you now. You're really walking well part of me is like yeah It is and I'm super excited about that and the other part of me is like yeah, but the other half the time I can't do anything and I feel so Hobbled and stuck I was at a I was at a birthday party the other night and this is totally a joke I hope no one takes offense of this but we were joking that my cripple level was really low that day Because I was moving around really well. So like there are days where my cripple level is low and my cripple level is high other days It's okay. I am a cripple so I can make a joke about it. It's a weird. It's a weird time. It's a weird discrepancy It's all interesting and I guess in reality It's not that different from when I had my ankle and some days were good and some days were really really bad I guess that's just where I am right now But the good news is is that there's sunshine at the end of this tunnel and it will continue to get better And I'll continue to adjust and that's why I did this in the first place And I need to remember that in some moments because I'll be entirely honest There are some moments when I'm like would it just been easier to keep my leg that hurts all the time because my leg still hurts all The time if it was gonna hurt all the time anyways Why why did I go through all this hassle? But I do know why and I get to see that more and more in moments right now and God that's necessary After a year and a half of this I'm really grateful for that. Thanks for listening guys I'm gonna go back to watching episode four of his dark materials Let me know if you're watching along with me and cuddling with sweet puppies and just enjoying a relaxing evening and kind of Disconnecting for a while because I sure need it. Thank you to my patrons for making these videos possible Thanks for listening to bits and pieces of my life. I truly appreciate it. I love you guys I'm thinking about you and I'll see you in the next video. Bye guys