 As of yesterday, it has now been 10 months since I've become an amputee. It's been 10 months since I've started this channel and oh my god, it has been a wild ride filled with adventure and laughter and tears and challenges and really cool things and difficult ones and let's talk about that. Hello my beautiful internet friends and welcome back. This is the 10 month post-amputation update. I've done a couple other ones of these for the different months. Three month update because day is the three month month anniversary of my amputation that has been four months since my amputation, just over four months. Today is the six month anniversary of losing my leg. Honestly, these serve a couple different purposes. One, I think it's neat to have the documentation for myself. Secondly, if you're gonna face amputation it might be good to know what it looks like at different stages. And lastly, it makes for a fun video I think to kind of recap everything. Hi baby. For all of you guys who have been here for part of the journey or if you haven't here's what's been happening. I won't go into like everything just because a lot of my recent videos have been focused on like what's coming up and the fact that I'm having surgery again in a few weeks. Just about two weeks exactly which is kind of crazy. But the one big question that's been echoing around my head is if I knew what I know now, would I still have done it? Would I still have had an elective like amputation to make my life better when it has been a very very uphill battle? So let's talk about that. Quick recap if you have not been here for a lot of this. I had my leg chopped off October 11, 2018. Hey everybody it's Jo. It is now one day before my ankle amputation and we are headed up to Denver tonight to get everything prepared and at 7.30 tomorrow morning I will have my right lower leg chopped off amputated taken off. December I got fitted for a prosthetic. I think it was and then quickly after that I had a really really bad fall that caused a couple verses. Long story short I had surgery in March. Right now as you are watching this I actually scheduled it to go live the minute that my surgery is starting. I am having surgery as we speak. It fixed things but it didn't actually fix things. It caused issues and other underlying issues were still there and so I have been on hold unable to use a prosthetic since December and now I am two weeks out from having my leg cut off a second time. It's super weird to think about. At the beginning of all of this I had this expectation in my head that things would be really hard. Obviously becoming an amputee would be incredibly difficult and something that I couldn't predict. Hey guys it's Jo welcome back. You can see some of my cute little puppies sitting over there. I realized that trying to predict how we're going to react to something is pretty damn useless because you don't know until you get there. But I did like all the research that I possibly could. I watched all the YouTube videos for weeks on end. I researched everything that I could. I looked up what life would really look like. I've been talking to the amputee community which has been amazing because there are a surprising number of people who have leg amputations when you really start talking to people and there's been a lot of support and a lot of answering questions. What the actual you know challenges and struggles would be but I still think I kind of had a rosy picture of what my life would be. I thought that it would fix problems and not cause them which was a naive view to have but I was very very hopeful and so I thought okay I'm going to have this done. Six to eight weeks later I'm going to get fit for prosthetic. It's going to be hard. It's going to be difficult. I'm going to have to readjust to life. This is a change forever but I'm going to be able to walk again maybe without pain and that's worth it and so it's not that there wasn't more thought that I put into it because believe me there was but that was that was like it when you boiled it down right. I just wanted to be able to do things and I saw this as the way to do that because surgeries were going to end an amputation anyway. Like after the recovery is mostly done like being able to run and being able to do stuff and being able to hike with my dogs and even just freaking walk around the block without as much pain as I have right now. And again if you don't know what I'm talking about or my whole story I'll link a playlist down below that thoroughly goes into all of that and one thing that I think I even said in a few videos towards the beginning is I know that I don't even know all the questions to ask. Telling me to ask questions I wouldn't have even thought to ask. Like I cannot predict how difficult this is going to be or what my reaction is going to be because frankly none of us can predict our reactions to something until we actually get there. There is no way to predict how I am going to feel. This has been so much harder than I ever could have imagined in so many more ways and it's like it's all the little things frankly it's all the little things that get to me. It's the not being able to stand up and move even a few steps without thinking about it. It's not being able to get myself a glass of water without thinking about it and putting effort into it and everything is um everything is still pretty exhausting and I'm adjusting like I'm finding a new normal but it has been emotionally a train wreck at times and exhausting but then at the same time I've been able to do so much like I traveled overseas for the first time in my life in months like six or five of being an amputee which I'm super proud of myself for being able to do and I launch this channel and I get to talk to all of you guys so there have been really really cool things along the way but the question like I said that I've been asking myself at month 10 heading into another amputation or revision they're doing it all over again I'm kind of starting over at stage one is if I knew what was going to happen would I do it over again it's funny I posted a community poll a little while ago saying hey if you have any questions I'll be doing the q&a and so many of those questions were do you regret it like would you go back and and do it it being having this amputation again and I have to be honest um yes I would but I'm also honestly glad that I didn't know what I know because I think it would have made the decision so much more difficult I wanted to be informed like I wanted to know what the challenges and struggles and risks were obviously that's important they cut into one there so that's the leg that we're considering removing so yeah at this point I'm thinking it's probably best given the information and life I'm living right now to go ahead with a lower leg amputation but I think that there was no way that I could actually absorb how hard this was going to be there was no way that I could comprehend that without actually going through it myself and I kind of think it was necessary for me to be able to make the decision not to know how hard it was going to be I think I'm just thinking about things from like a rational perspective like it makes sense to do this because it's the quickest way to a better life I kind of had to separate the emotional and the rational sides of my thought process of my being and just focus on the rational for a little while and realize that yes this is the best decision for my life yes it is going to be hard but I kind of threw hard into this bucket of like yeah I've gone through stuff before I've gone through challenges in my life before and I've made it out to the other side but with the information I have this is the decision I need to make I'm glad I made it but if I could go back and tell Joe before surgery this is how hard it's actually going to be I don't think I would I'm doing it in nine days I'm going to have it below the right knee leg amputation um it has not been easy decision to make I have done a lot of thinking a lot of talking to people and yeah nine days I will have my lower leg removed and start a new chapter of life I don't think I would let her into all of those bits and pieces and secrets because I don't think that I would have heard them I don't think I needed to hear them that decision needed to be made I haven't seen the benefits of that decision yet like I'm not able to walk I'm definitely not in less pain well that's not true actually most days my residual limb does hurt less than my ankle did which is fantastic but I'm also not on it if I actually try to put any weight on it it's just as bad or way worse so at month 10 I can tell you sincerely I don't regret this but also this was a hell of a lot harder than I ever could have thought in every possible way I thought that things were going to go smoothly at a minimum and I thought that even that was going to be hard which is true but with all the bumps in the road this has tested me in every pretty much every possible way and I'm still in the process of of that testing and it's a challenge but there are so many bits of gold along the way too and even though I don't see the reward yet even though I don't see the benefit I am holding on to hope that it's there I'm holding on to the vision that one day I'm gonna make a video going hello tears of going for a jog for the first time on a running leg and before that before I show you guys that I'm gonna show all the clips like this all the moments previous to this where I felt hopeless and I felt like it was never gonna be okay and like I would never get there I'm gonna piece all those together and then one day I'm gonna run and it's gonna be okay I'm just not there yet and in this particular moment it may change 10 minutes from now I feel hopeful about this next surgery I feel hopeful that it will bring some help I love the medical team that I'm working with I feel like they're very very competent and like I might actually be able to get somewhere and that's really cool so at month 10 I'm grateful to be moving forward finally at month 10 I'm still terrified of all of this head month 10 I'm very overwhelmed I'm still getting used to it I'm still making peace with the fact that I am an amputee and what that means how sometimes very difficult and challenging it is also I love that you can see a puppy foot I didn't notice that until just now how long has that been the case Sadie Sadie how long have you been in the video and oh and we're about to be invaded by a secondary shepherd hi Sophie mommy's gotta finish the video fully done she's such a good dog anyways this is me at month 10 and you know what in the grand scheme of things 10 months actually isn't that long I think it makes sense that I'm still adjusting that I'm still grieving that I'm still having a hard time and I'll get there wherever there is it's a process at the journey and all of those other super cliche words thank you for being a part of this journey with me it means more to me than I can ever tell you with words thank you thank you to my patrons who make this possible who sponsor my videos and support what I do thank you watching this video for spending a few minutes of your day here with me learning about month 10 I love you guys I'm thinking about you and I'll see you in the next video bye guys Sadie's foot says bye too