 I'm gonna fall out of my face double time. It's like a kool-aid banner. Don't fall on your own camera. Don't fall on your own camera. I make no profit. This video is sponsored by Skillshare. Stay tuned to hear me talk a little bit more about them later. I don't even know how to sit still long enough to film this video. I'm gonna do my very best. Hello there, my beautiful, amazing, intelligent, delightful internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you so much for joining me here today. I'm gonna let you know right off the bat that this, this smile is probably not gonna fade for the extent of this video. My face already hurts from smiling so much today. I can't even put into words how exciting this day is to me because I just did something for the first time since I was frickin' 12 years old, and it felt amazing. I just wanna run around screaming in joy, but we can't do that because it frightens the neighbors. If you're new to my channel or you don't know my story, the long and short of it is, hey, my name is Jo. I'm missing a leg. I am a below-the-knee amputee, hence footless Jo. So when I was 13, I had a really bad horseback riding accident that shattered my ankle and never healed right. We had surgeries and surgeries and surgeries. I had it fused eventually, countless injections. So after 14 years of worsening pain and kind of living surgery to surgery, I had to make the decision two years ago when I was 27 to amputate my leg for hope of a better life. And a better life, like a higher quality of life to me was to just be in less pain every day and be able to walk, do the things that I like, take my dogs for a walk, go for a hike. I live in Colorado, I love being outside, and I've been able to achieve that over the last couple months. It's been a difficult journey getting here with some unexpected twists and turns. However, the icing on the cake, the thing that I'm like, I'm okay if I can't do that, but if I could do that, oh my God, has been running because since I was 13, I have not been able to run. I've like jogged short distances which was always pretty painful. Like if I absolutely needed to, I've been able to go for a jog, go for a run, just do anything like that, and I've always desperately wanted to do that because I love sports, I love activities, I love being able to push myself. Having this amputation, it was by no means like one of the top factors, but it was definitely the thing that I have been aspiring to, I've been like hoping to get to for friggin, since I was 13 years old. So in October 2018, I had my leg amputation, had a fall, caused a lot of issues, had to have the amputee to begin that August, and over the past few months, I've gotten to a place where I'm pretty stable, I'm active, my prosthetic leg is working really well for me, so I really began to think about like how I could get a running blade, you know like these running blades, the things that you see cool amputees running around on. I desperately wanted one of these, but they are very expensive, so I was looking into some grant programs like seeing what I could do, and then my incredible friend, Anika, offered me one of her extra ones which was just, thank you, thank you again so much, I cannot tell you how much this means to me. So let's flash back real quick to a couple weeks ago as I go in for my first running blade appointment. Today is running blade day, assuming all goes well. You know that feeling that you get on Christmas morning, that's a little bit of what I was feeling right now, like I had difficulty sleeping last night, because I was nervous slash excited for this, and today might be the first step towards making this a reality. So let's head up to Denver, see Zach, and get a running leg. One thing that's gonna be a little bit different than any other socket I've ever had made is that this is gonna attach to the back of my leg, like behind my calf. I feel like that will feel very weird to walk on or hop on. I've also been told that it feels like you're like bouncing on a trampoline, learning how to actually use one of these. So I'm prepared, I'm prepared for weirdness, I'm prepared for it not to feel great the first few times I'm using it, but to figure out how this works right for me. I got this sweet swag from Rise Prosthetics. We just found out that they are taking care of all the measurements right now. They're building my running blade socket based on the socket that I have for walking, like the measurements, because it's working really well for me and making some modifications. So they're gonna do all that work. I'm gonna be coming back in a few days, hopefully maybe a week or two, to actually pick it up and try it out and then really dial in the running blade. Okay, so we just finished up the first appointment. Apparently this is gonna be one of three. There we go, three. So I left my running blade there, they're working on making the socket perfect, and then step two is gonna be going in to get the alignment right, and then finish again. So I wasn't really sure how the whole process was gonna go, but I was told that, you know, this is the first appointment. They basically measured my leg, I dropped off the running blade, and they're gonna work their magic. And then I went back this morning for my second appointment. As I said, I knew that there were gonna be three appointments. This was the second one, and I imagined that I might be able to like try it on. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to like, you know, take a few jogging steps or whatever, if maybe it wouldn't be at that place. I didn't wanna get my hopes up too much. You know what, I can't even put words together. Let me just roll footage from a few hours ago. Okay, real quick, before we get into the thing that is making me smile like an idiot, I wanted to take a quick moment to introduce you to our sponsor today, Skillshare. You've heard me talk about them before. This is a service I absolutely love. I highly endorse. Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of courses to choose from, which is absolutely perfect for the quarantine season that we are in. They're essentially endless classes for creative and curious people as we are. One that I've been working my way through recently is Creativity Unlocked by Nathaniel Drew. I actually found Nathaniel's channel because he is a YouTuber back when he had like 80,000 subscribers. I don't know, maybe a year, a year and a half ago, I really enjoyed his content, and then he absolutely blew up. It's been so exciting to see him become who he is and really come into his creativity, and I wanted to learn from him. So when I saw Nathaniel's course pop up on this list, I thought, of course, I need to take this, and it's been fantastic. I would highly recommend Skillshare. And the first 1,000 people who use the link right there, it's right there down below in the description, will get a free trial of Skillshare. This is really risk-free, and this is what I did when I first started using Skillshare to figure out if I liked it to see what classes they had, and I was hooked after that. So using that link not only helps to support this channel, but also provides you with something pretty cool and I highly recommend checking it out. Thank you to Skillshare for sponsoring this video, and now let's get back into it. It is Running Blade Day Part 2. I hope you're very excited for mommy. So it has been about two weeks since my last appointment when I dropped off the Running Blade, and they took the measurements and everything like that. And today, I'm going back in at a new location. It'll be super exciting. I'm a little bit nervous, can you tell? To actually kind of try it out, test it out a little bit, kind of adjust some of the fittings, and then from my understanding, they're going to go back, cement it, make it into an actual leg, and then I'll pick it up in another couple of weeks. But today could actually be the day that I start, that I like try it out a little bit, see what it feels like, actually put on a Running Blade that I've only dreamed about for like way too many years. So I have a work meeting that I have to take right before we have to leave. So I've assembled all of my gear, my tripod, my running clothes. I don't know, what do people wear to run? I've never been able to run. So I have it right here that I can just grab it and go, and I'm so excited. Are you excited for me, Sophie? What's the head tilt? What's the head tilt? Brian's very excited. What? Clearly. Still so weird to me to see like just a closet of leg pieces and feet. So this room here is actually pretty meaningful to me. Over on those bars, I was working with like a team of prosthetists for like this testing day. And this was the first time I ever took steps that I actually felt okay. Yeah, this is a fitting place to kind of try the next step of this. Creeper. That feels so weird. Everyone said it was like walking a trampoline or something like that. Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure what to do with it. It's good to try to take faster steps when trying to outer. Yeah. So it's just like... Yeah, I couldn't run before. So cool. This is so cool, guys. Yeah, it feels great. That's a chilly one today. I'm feeling it. Don't fall your own camera. Don't what? Don't fall your own camera. I make no promises. My God. I have not been this excited about anything in like my adult memory. Like just this viscerally just... Oh, it was so cool. It was so freaking cool to be able to take like running steps and to run across a parking lot. Like what? I did that today. Oh my God. Just... Oh, put words together, Joe. Put words together. You're filming. Yeah. So that happened today. It's only something I've been working towards in the past. What? 15 years of my life, 16 years of my life. And this is the first step, right? Like today was kind of refitting it, making sure it could work. And now they are taking it in to finish it up. And I will be picking that up in a few weeks, which is super exciting. I cannot wait to bring her home. Please leave suggestions for my running blades name in the comment section down below. This community has always been responsible for naming my prosthetics. Like for instance, this is Sunshine because I'm walking on Sunshine and you won't get that song out of your head for the rest of the day. You're welcome. But I would love the community to name my running blade as well. So please leave your suggestions down below or, you know, upvote people's who you think are pretty cool. But it felt really good. Like it felt good on my body. Like obviously my body isn't used to running. So my knee was like, what are you doing, man? And there are a few points where they're going to need to alter things to make pressure a little bit better. But physically it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. And emotionally, holy freaking goodness. Yeah. I'm so excited. I literally like, I don't feel like I can sit still. And that's very, not like me. As you can see from the footage, like this is my first time trying to run. So my gate, like the way that I'm running isn't perfect because I've never actually really learned to run. So I'm really excited to learn how to run. It's going to be a journey. It's going to be a process. It's going to take some time. I'm absolutely planning on training four or five cakes. I think it's good to have like a goal to work towards and run with my husband and run with friends. And I just really get into this. I am so ready for it. I'm going to say something that's so cheesy, but I really feel like this is like, like our win, like something that we've all done together. And I can't wait to bring you along on the rest of the journey. I'm really excited for the day. I actually get to pick it up and bring it home and can really start, you know, playing around with it here. But, but yeah, I, I'm going to end the video pretty much right here, mostly because I don't think I can sit still any longer because I'm so gosh darn excited. Thank you. Thank you for being here for this video. Thank you for being here for this journey. It's going to continue. I'm really excited, I'm excited to bring you along. A huge thank you to our sponsor today, Skillshare. Again, check out the link down below. I would honestly really highly recommend them and to my patrons. So my patrons were the first people to know about this. Like I posted a picture of me running just like an hour after I was able to get there. And I just want to say thank you so gosh darn much to my Patreon community. You guys are incredibly generous. Thank you so much. This has only been possible with all of your help. So to you right now, watching this video, thank you so much for taking a few minutes out of your day to sit here with me today and go on a run with me for the first time in conscious memory anyways. Like I'm sure I ran as a kid. I know I did, but it didn't mean something to me then and it really means something to me now. This is a huge victory and I am obviously insanely excited. So thank you for being here. I love you guys. I'm thinking about you and I can't wait to see you in the next video. Bye guys.