 Well good morning there, my beautiful lovely talented internet friends. Welcome back to my channel Thank you so much for joining me today for an amputee cleans the house video. Here's the story. My house is a wreck I feel like my internal life is a wreck and there are one of those things that I can fix Immediately and that is my house. Living with three dogs and two cats and two adults who work full-time and then some and also have things on the side means that sometimes Oftentimes house cleaning falls to the bottom of the priorities list and then it gets really bad So today is the day. I just made myself some macaroni and cheese. We got home We put groceries ready like adults just doing a great job of adulting today This video might just be a slow process of watching me fall apart today. I'm not sure and I'm gonna eat my macaroni and cheese Probably make myself some coffee and we're gonna tackle this piece now. There is one thing you should know I'm deeply ashamed of how my house looks at the moment And I'm gonna show you how it actually looks when when life is the way that it is right now So if you want to judge me believe me I understand but I would ask for a little bit of your grace and mercy as we go through cleaning this house now There actually are a few things that are different about cleaning a house and taking care of a house from before Amputation after amputation it still needs to get done either way So I've had to modify and pace a few things differently first though. I'll be honest with you guys I'm gonna I'm gonna need some of coffee. This is just this isn't gonna work otherwise. I Hope you saw that my prosthetic foot caught on the table leg and I almost just ate it on camera Are you helping today? I don't think you're gonna help. All right first things first Something I learned early on is that I cannot clean my house without actual shoe zone Now I'm one of those people who when I as soon as I'm in the house shoes come off socks come off I'm done with that business. But if I clean my house with just my prosthetic foot I have slipped more times and I can tell you either on a clumps of dog hair Which is horribly embarrassing or if the floor is like a little bit wet It'll slip it'll twist my knee and then I won't be able to finish the job The problem is that the bottom of this is so smooth. There's just there's no actual grip on it So I don't know about you but when I'm personally cleaning my house I like to start with tasks that I can immediately see a difference on right So what we're gonna do is we're gonna clean this little mess behind me We're gonna empty the dishwasher take care of dishes and move on to the interesting stuff because at least I can see that This counter is clean and I'll feel a little bit better about myself in my life So this is like half the coffee cups that are in our dishwasher Can you tell what the staple of my current diet is? Oftentimes Brian and I will get questions about what the most challenging part for him has been about adjusting to life And the relationship with an amputee and the answer has consistently been which makes perfect sense to me cleaning before my amputation I try to take care of the house as much as I could like it took a lot of pride and taking care of my space Making sure things were clean both Brian and I are kind of we can't really focus We can't really concentrate and relax in our house unless it's clean And so I'd spend a lot of my time doing that But now that I am working a lot and he is working a lot and I'm dealing with my leg and bad days and good days A lot of it started falling to him especially after surgeries and man It's really hard trying to balance that it's really hard trying to suddenly take care of an entire house by yourself When that's not been a part of your schedule and so working out how we take care of our house now like how we delegate Responsibilities is probably one of the only things we actually ever really get that stressed about obviously we work it out It's not a big problem But it is the thing that comes to mind when I think of what has this you know Affected or changed in our relationship. Definitely house cleaning duty. Thankfully I'm getting to a place where I'm able to do a lot more Which I really like Also for the record if it wasn't clear Brian did a kick-ass job of taking care of pretty much everything in our life for about a year And I'm really really grateful for everything he did for us Okay, so I need you guys to settle an argument for me Brian says I load the dishwasher on look at that things in in nice perfect road Right, I don't know am I missing something here guys Is this a homeschool moment where I realize I've never really learned to load the dishwasher the right way I don't know. You let me know in the comment section. Who's right here? Okay? So the downstairs, which is where my puppies hang out the most is always what gets absolutely Appalling first. I'm gonna show you just one example of this. I promise you guys I vacuumed a day and a half ago. I'm like my floor is covered in dog hair And that's just one side of the room. So we do brush our dogs, but German shepherd shedding in the summer a handful to keep up with Okay, team. Let's talk strategy I'm thinking dusting first because you dust things things fall to the floor It'd be silly to vacuum first. Am I right? No, no, I'm gonna straighten up first Then we're gonna dust then we're gonna vacuum then if we if we're really feeling ambitious We're gonna mop this floor. Yeah, this is um, this is a riveting video, isn't it? I'm sorry. Can you move over here? Do you think you can move over here with a Nicholas Cage pillow? You took your spot! You took your spot! Yay! Remnants of tennis balls That apparently the dogs still want Look at all that dog hair. It's all your fault puppy. It's all your fault Something else I found over the past year and a half of being a below knee amputee By the way, it is below knee as in below the knee joint Not below knee like that weird meat that we all ate when we were kids Anyways, something I have noticed is that my standards of cleaning have gone down a little bit Like I said, both Brian and I used to be really really particular about the house and keeping it clean and nice and everything But I don't have as much energy now. Just sincerely. I'm really tired a lot of time Moving takes 20 to 30 percent more energy as an amputee just like going about your daily life I try to make house cleaning as quick and efficient as effective as possible It's not as detailed because to some extent I want to conserve the energy I have so I can still work the rest of the day or actually relax and anything and not just pass out My garage is mad. Do you guys like the vacuum cleaner? No, no you do not These are all tennis ball pieces just scattered everywhere The joy of having shepherds You're helping. I don't think you are All right coffee break time sometimes for me I almost feel like it's more the routine of making and drinking coffee than the coffee itself that I love I love the smell of it. I love making it and being involved in that process. It's really calming to me So actually sipping the coffee is sometimes an added perk I've talked about this with you guys before on this channel But I feel like a big part of living with a disability is learning to always adapt and I am still very much in the process of that This morning. I was going to go get groceries. I got my leg on I was ready to get out the door when suddenly again My leg wouldn't seal to me and like I talked about in a video a couple videos ago Well, my leg won't seal. I can't use it. It causes problems. It hisses air It like physically doesn't feel right and so I fought with it for about 20 minutes and I couldn't get it right So I switched back to this blue sleeve that you see on me It's not nearly as comfortable. It's a lot thicker. I don't know. There's something going on I think with my leg maybe with the valve because I put two brand new sleeves on my leg and both of them wouldn't hold it Only this other sleeve will actually hold the air So I was able to find some kind of modification to make it work But the reality is that the things will come up that I have no way to predict that prevent me from being able to walk Like I normally would I might get up in the morning and be like this is going to be an awesome day I'm going hiking. I'm going to clean the house I'm going to do all kinds of things and then my leg will just be like, no, I don't feel like it And then you got to improvise, right? But thankfully today we did find a solution with this other blue sleeve And I tried to head up to Denver for a prosthetics appointment this week or next to see what's going on Why my leg won't actually stick to me, but I'm grateful that in the meantime I at least have a kind of temporary solution. All right. I think we've braked long enough. Let's dive back in Okay, now it's time for the dangerous part of today's household activity Like I was saying in the beginning It's really important that I always put shoes on because slipping on my prosthetic leg Which a hundred percent happens if the floors are wet and I'm walking around on just my foot without a shoe Causes a lot of sort of immediate pain in my knee and at the bottom of my socket any like quick Uncontrolled twist cause a lot of discomfort and pain for the rest of the day. So I'm always really careful when mopping the floors I'm not like walking back over wet areas I guess this is also basic human knowledge because you know slipping on floors not great for your health That is not going to happen today. We're going to get some of these paw prints off the floor like those right there Hi little Sophie. All right, so we're going to let those floors dry for a little bit Generally when I'm actually cleaning the house really well I'll go back over it one more time because dog hair just seems to settle in brand new places I don't know where it comes from. Do you know what do you know where it comes from? They don't know don't get me wrong. I absolutely love having dogs. I love having cats I love having animals and pets But the workload of trying to keep up with cleaning our our fairly small house Challenging and that's not a challenge that just exists for me, obviously or just for my family I know it's something that everyone has to struggle to try to balance. Well, not everyone has five pets But you know what I mean the state of my house is pretty directly correlated to my mental health and it's been a It's been a difficult week. It's been a difficult week for a lot of us I think I've really been struggling to think straight and to like Keep moving forward even if moving forward, you know, even if the path is very unclear It's a very lost that doesn't belong in a cleaning video But I kind of talk about whatever I talk about in these videos cleaning the house is usually A good step in the right direction for me because I feel like I can breathe a little bit easier It doesn't fix anything. It doesn't take away any You know depression or anxiety, but it but it helps a little bit I feel like I've gotten to this weird place, right? It's been about a year and a half since amputation It's been almost a year now a little less than that since the second amputation that made it right And I look a lot more functional now because I am I'm able to walk I go for a little walks in the morning I can ride a bike. I've been going hiking. I've been doing stuff. I'm Uh a little bit more reliable a little bit more consistent, right? I'm not in as much pain All of these things are are really good things and so I feel more functional I look more functional But I feel like I haven't quite figured out a way to balance at all just yet Like my body very much feels like it's still adjusting to Difference of not having a part of my body and I think I've mentioned this in other videos before but amputees below knee amputees Expand 20. I think I think it's 20 to 35 percent more energy just existing just going about daily life That doesn't even take into account things like exercise and working out And so I like I try to eat to keep up with it I try to rest enough to keep up with it Which is with sleep sleeps a challenge But though my body is becoming more capable of doing things I just get really overwhelmed really quickly and really Exhausted really quickly. And so I'm trying to figure out how to juggle all the Batons, I don't know do people juggle batons how to juggle all the balls of of my life and to keep the overwhelm at bay And take time when I need it. I know that uh Cleaning a house is such a mundane thing, but being able to accomplish something like this Actually does make me breathe a little bit easier It makes me happy that I can do this for brian because it makes him happy too It's nice to take care of the environment that you're in the world is a Uncertain confusing overwhelming place right now and I think I'm feeling that the last thing that I wanted to do was Pick up any cleaning supplies and do anything like this But I knew that if I could take that first step maybe it would help me break through that cloud of depression Like when my leg wasn't working this morning when I couldn't get the liner to work I just I get so frustrated so quickly and I just want to quit and I was already feeling the depression kicking in and that Just like ramped it up because I got so upset and so sad and feeling so stuck But fighting through that and being like no, I'm going to do one thing today I'm going to film a video and then I am going to get my house clean helps me start rolling in the right direction Isn't it a law of physics that an object in motion is easier to keep in motion than one at rest? I don't know. It's something like that anyone who's a who's a physics person Let me know what that statement actually is just starting something just getting something done has been really helpful for me staying sane And feeling okay. All right. Well, I think I I think I need a shower now. Um, maybe I should clean my hair I mean who knows that's probably not going to happen get those blankets washed. Maybe I'll tackle laundry today Who knows and uh hang out with my sweet little puppy dogs Napping all around me All right guys. Thank you so much for listening to me today. Thank you so much for watching Thank you to my patrons who make this time easier. I truly appreciate your support. I don't take it for granted Thank you If you're interested in supporting this channel patreon and it's amazing way to do that We have a great community over there and I would really appreciate it If you felt like it checking it out Link is on screen and also down in the description down below and to you watching this video right now Thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today I feel like I've been in a weird a weird kind of mood. So thanks for chilling with me even though I'm a little off I uh, I'm grateful for that. You could be anywhere in the world doing anything and you chose to spend a few minutes with me So thank you. I love you guys. I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video Bye guys