 Hello there, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you so much for joining me here today. I'm gonna be entirely honest with you. Getting in front of a camera and putting words together feels really awkward. I think I have been quarantined a little bit too long. I think all of us have been. And any kind of social interaction, even if it's not direct social interaction, even if I'm not talking to you face to face, feels a little uncomfortable, feels a little weird. Hopefully we'll all be able to safely return to normal society soon. But with that out of the way, I did want to share with you 10 unexpected things about life as an amputee. A couple people suggested this over on my community page. And I thought it would be a really fun one to cover because I started really thinking about this over the last couple of days. And there have been a lot of unexpected things that are neither, I mean, some of them are great. Some of them are just odd. Mostly they're just things that I didn't think about or were totally unexpected. So thank you for putting these suggestions down. I really liked this idea. And let's dive in with number one. I think I had a lot of assumptions going into all of this that I didn't even realize that I had. For instance, one of them that led to probably the biggest surprise is that when you get a prosthetic leg, it's still constantly changing. Like I kind of thought in my head that once you have your amputation, then you get fitted for a leg, maybe you get used to it for a couple weeks, a couple months, and then you're set. Turns out that's really not the case, at least for the vast majority of people. Your leg, like the actual leg that I have remaining, is changing shape, changing size. You think something works, and then two weeks later you realize it's rubbing in a weird place and you have to go get your socket adjusted again. And I'm able to walk now, but I still don't really have, I don't feel like a final leg. Like it still doesn't feel right. I'm not sure when it'll get to that point. It's constantly shifting, especially in the first couple years. And I sort of thought that once you had a leg, you just had a leg and you were kind of good to go, and that's definitely not the case. As I continue through life, my leg will continue to shrink until there's basically nothing left but bone and skin. And so I'm going to have to continue to have socket changes made. And that's just how life goes. You become good friends with your prosthetist, which is why it's a very good idea to find someone you actually jive well with. I think jive is still a word that people use. I don't know. I haven't seen people in way too long. Number two, clothes. Clothes have definitely been a weird part of this whole journey. I didn't think that they would have to change quite as much as they did. If you don't know, and I didn't know before I entered into this process, you have to change out parts and pieces of your leg throughout the day. For instance, I have to put socks on and socks off the bottom of my limb as it swells or decreases the size throughout the day. And so I have to be able to access it. Now I used to be a skinny jeans always kind of girl and now I only wear those in like very specific situations because I can't take my leg off just sitting there. I have to like find a room to be alone in or AKA the bathroom most of the time and take my pants basically completely off to be able to change my leg the way that I need to. And that's fine if I have to do it like once or twice during the day. But when I need to do this fairly regularly depending on the day, it's difficult to not be able to access my leg. So I've tried to change up my wardrobe as much as I can. I'd like to get more into skirts. I'm not really a skirt kind of person but skirts and dresses would definitely make this a lot easier, but I mostly opt for athletic shorts as often as possible. So I'm still trying to figure out the wardrobe thing but it's really been surprising to me how much I've had to think about how I dress and change the way I dress and really plan it out. I do think that doing a whole video on the topic at some point would be pretty interesting as there's a lot to discuss within that but clothing has definitely been a large surprise in all of this. Number four and I hope that any process watching out there do not take any offense at this but I didn't realize how much of a guessing game prosthetics were. It's not like it's a guessing game. I mean, they're obviously very highly talented and highly skilled at what they do but there's no way to definitively say like this is the right fit for you. It is completely trial and error. I mean, it really comes down to what you communicate to them, how they interpret that, how they modify it. It's a weird process to go through trying to get the right fit on your prosthesis and I'm still learning how to communicate that well and learning how to talk about this is how it hurts. This is exactly where it hurts. This is what I'm doing when it hurts and really get specific with that so they have the information they need to make changes but even then I think it's still more art than it is science. Number four, I have mentioned this before but you kind of lose the ability to be invisible in society. That was never a thing or a privilege I really knew that I had but prior to losing my leg I could kind of disappear, you know, going to a coffee shop I was just another person there but now unless I am wearing something that fully covers my leg and my foot I'm not a spectacle, that's the wrong word for it but obviously a lot of people stare and so I don't have the ability to kind of just blend in places anymore. I always sort of stick out and it's taken me a long time to get used to that that the losing the ability to just blend in and sort of be invisible along with everybody else. I think that's a good thing and also sometimes it's pretty uncomfortable. Number five, this is kind of a weird one for me but a friend of mine gave me some advice before becoming the amputee as they are one themselves and said how you treat this, how you treat this part of yourself sets the precedence, that's the standard for how others are gonna treat you. If it's something that you are very ashamed of and hate and want to hide and never want to talk about or show people are gonna treat you like it maybe is something to be ashamed of and I don't like saying that sentence because it sounds like I'm saying if someone treats me badly it's my fault and that's not at all what I'm saying but the more comfortable I am being an amputee the more comfortable other people are around me I've definitely noticed that. I think in reality that probably goes for most things in life but it has been really interesting to notice that yeah, the more okay I am with this the more others around me are okay with it. Number six, driving, this is a question I get quite often people always ask me can you still drive without a leg? Like how do you do, it's your right leg so that's like your accelerator and brake foot how can you even drive anymore? I also address this in other videos but driving hasn't changed like almost at all for me I learned to drive with my left foot when I was a kid growing up getting my driver's license because I was having surgeries on my right foot during that time anyways and honestly if anything it's easier to have my right foot out of the way completely unless I'm wearing my prosthetic of course I just kind of like fold it under my left leg to get out of the way and I just drive with my left foot so driving is definitely something that has not changed except for driving manual which I have not tried yet I think that would be a fun experiment and I hope to find a manual car to experiment with that on sometime soon number seven the things that I deeply struggle with have not changed at all when I imagine going through something like losing a limb like amputation I kind of thought it was this it is, I mean I thought it was like this huge massive deal but in reality the things that I've always struggled with namely mental health issues are still exponentially more difficult than going through this has been it's been interesting to me that adjusting to this has been easier than adjusting to other things in my life that has come as a surprise because it's way more of a clear outward change than anything else ever has been but honestly the things that I'm okay with and the things that I legitimately struggle with and have a hard time really haven't changed that much before I had a leg to after I didn't have as much of a leg number eight I feel like this is gonna be a little cliche but I don't feel different at all like I don't feel like a disabled person in quotes like I do have a disability but I don't feel separate or outside of anyone else most of the time like I don't feel like I am a different person after losing my leg it's just another piece of me it's something I'm adjusting to it's something that I'm learning but I legitimately do not feel any less or more human not that I necessarily expected to but I think we still talk about disability like it's such a different thing especially if you've never experienced it or never known anyone closely who had but in all sincerity I don't feel different I don't feel outside other people I definitely have moments where I feel that way but as a baseline I still feel like you I still feel like me and it's not all that different number nine I have freaking fantastic balance on one foot I am able to hop around which I know I shouldn't do and I try not to do it too much but I do hop from time to time I've had my giant German shepherd who was 80 pounds jump on me when I was just like standing on one foot without a prosthesis and it doesn't even phase me like I'm able to just like catch her and like put her back down and hop about my day it's crazy to me how much your body adjusts to whatever you throw at it and my body is definitely adjusted to being on one foot sometimes and not falling over it's really cool that our bodies have the ability to do that it's pretty neat to see last but not least number 10 people are pretty great I think I expected them kind of to be meaner about all of this even online I don't get comments that are belittling me or making fun of me for having a visible disability for being an amputee I get people be mean for other things but I can't think of the situation or topic off the top of my head where someone has said something that was really mean or hurtful directed at the fact that I'm an amputee and I kind of expected that to some extent and I really haven't experienced it this is just my own personal experience I know that many many many people have experienced a lot of bullying and horrible things when it comes to this sort of thing and that really breaks my heart I'm really grateful that that's an experience that I've had the people around me have been awesome the people around me in public thus far have been generally pretty great and it's neat to see people try to figure out how to interact with me how to ask questions in a nice way how to learn more and be really sincere about all of this I think I've learned even more that people can be pretty fantastic and that has been a bit of a surprise but one that's very welcome so I know that I can think of at least 10 more things off the top of my head that are pretty different about life as a new amputee if you would like me to make part two of surprising things about being an amputee or unexpected things please let me know I would happily do so if you are an amputee or you deal with some kind of illness or disability I would love to hear from you in the comment section down below some surprising things about that life for you thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me listening to me chat today I really appreciate it and a huge thank you to all my patrons over on Patreon for continuing to support me especially during this time it really means a lot to me and I'm very very grateful to each and every one of you I'm really glad to see you here I hope that you are healthy and safe and hanging in there I love you guys I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video bye guys