 There's a lot going on with the nerves here. To steal a joke from my editor, it's a very nerve-wracking procedure I'll be walking into. Today is the day for bad jokes. It is a pity party after all. Hello there, my beautiful, lovely internet friends. Welcome to my pity party! Look at this glorious straw. My friends made this for me. It was my birthday a few days ago, and they threw me a literal pity party for my birthday, complete with a sucks-to-be-you banner. And we all, like, wrote down our grievances against the world and burnt them. It was glorious. Not the point of this video. So as you are watching this video, I will be being wheeled into surgery for Mr. McNubbins here. This is a thing that I have put off for quite some time now, because it is not a surgery that comes without risks. And until it got to the point where I could not stand it anymore, I wasn't gonna do it. And unfortunately, that point came a couple of weeks ago when my knee got very accidentally, but very badly messed up when someone tried a dangerous move and just tore a bunch of stuff in there. One of my deepest fears has always been that anything happened to the good leg that I have. Because without that, I cannot get around. Like, I can use my prosthetic legs so sparingly right now, because of all of the pain on this side that has gotten worse month by month, that when this got busted up, I kind of reached the point of like, okay, I need to actually start addressing these problems instead of putting them off. And after consulting quite a few doctors, they all agree that this is the best option, so it is what I'm going to do. They're gonna be doing something called targeted muscle re-innovation, where they basically take the nerves, place them into muscles, so that the nerves can grow into that, which can help with nerve pain, phantom pain, things along those lines. But there's a lot going on in there, and they're gonna have to re-route, cut back, move muscle around, all kinds of stuff. And there is a guarantee that the pain will get worse for probably three to six months, and then hopefully, if it works, get better. Now, I initially knew that this surgery was an option last summer, but because of the possibility of it actually making things worse, I was like, I cannot take that risk. Now I feel like I have to because this is not at a manageable level anymore. One of the reasons I wanted to make this video, maybe in case anyone experiences something similar, is that I cannot properly put into words anymore how much my entire mind and body... ...by babies revolt at the thought of walking back into a hospital for more surgery. You don't know much about my history. I went through like 14 years of ankle surgeries as a teenager. I am a pro when it comes to going under anesthesia, being cut open and recovering for weeks. And you would think, I would think that that would make this easier. Oh, it's just another surgery. Okay, I'll be in pain for a while. Okay, I'll be super uncomfortable, life is put on hold, can't do things, can't work for a little while, all of that. But okay, I've done it before, I'll do it again. And I don't feel like I can do it again. Over the past two years in particular, the amount of medical experiences, many of which I have not discussed on this channel for reasons, and I don't love using this word a whole lot, but medical trauma that I have gone through and sort of processing the emotions from all of those years of surgeries and just having to shut down to get through it. Walking back into an OR and letting someone open up my body again, I have no fucking clue how to approach this with any hope. I was talking to a dear friend of mine the other day, and she made it so clear to me, because I was like, I don't know, I just, I can't do this. I don't want to do this. Like, I'm having trouble thinking it's going to work, even if there's a chance that it could. And she kind of stopped me and she was like, Joe, when have you ever had a surgery that like went the way that it was supposed to the first time? Of the like 20 plus surgeries I've had, there's been one. And it was my wrist surgery and it went perfectly fixed the problem, no issues, but it wasn't even that big of a deal in the first place. This sounds very self-pitying, but again, I'm okay with that because I'm in my pity party era. If there's like an 85% chance that something will work, generally speaking, I end up being in that like 15% that it just doesn't for. And that has been the case for treatments and surgeries and medications and all kinds of stuff over the years. And it is all built up to the point where I don't know what else to do other than just shut down entirely emotionally, which is something I've worked very hard not to do. I've worked on learning the skills to feel emotion, process it, get to a healthy place, not shove stuff down. But I don't have any tools anymore right now. And I think kind of going into survival mode for a period of time where then after the fact, hopefully I can process the emotions is the only thing I can do because I can't do this. If I think about it, I'm like, nope, I can't do it. The amount of mental torment is extensive, is a lot. It feels very much further complicated by the fact that my other knee, the one I'm going to have to be crutching on because I will be in a cast for at least four weeks because you cannot move your leg and like pull the nerves back out of place. Otherwise it doesn't work. This knee is really painful and feels crunchy and awful and will most likely need surgery. That's a problem for another time because I don't know how I'm going to get through that with no legs, but we'll figure it out. And I am amazingly lucky to have so many incredible friends and family members in my life who are all hands on deck to bring me home from the hospital and to take care of my dogs because they can't be around me in case they knock anything and ruin the whole point of the surgery. What do you think, Sophie? Okay, yeah. No, I get it. I understand. And here's the other thing that I wasn't super sure I wanted to talk about publicly and I'm still not sure that I want to talk about publicly. But this is the first major surgery and it is a pretty major one. I'll be in the hospital for a few days. It's very painful. The recovery time is long. This is the first major surgery that I've gone through since getting divorced and that part is really hard and it's just really scary. I know I'm not going through this actually alone. There are so many people in my life who are so ready to step up for me which I feel so lucky to have and very blessed and very grateful. But it's hard going through something this significant without the person that I see squirrels and cats outside and cannot contain himself. Long story short, it is really scary going through this as someone who lives alone just more and more dog hairs accumulating. How about you? What do you have? Do you have anything to say? So this will be a brand new adventure. This is one of those things that doesn't really have an answer but as many of you know if you followed my story one of the reasons that I had the amputation in the first place was to stop having surgery after surgery after surgery to possibly have a solution that would give me like more life less pain and a lot of ways it's done that. I have no regrets because the other option is so much worse but it's really hard. I mean like simply put when your life doesn't go the way that you want and the way that you imagine this will be the fourth surgery I've had on my nubbin. Yeah, fourth since it was cut off because sometimes shit goes wrong. It just happens and I'm very heartbroken over the fact that my life still feels so governed by pain, by limitation by like living surgery to surgery but also surgeries are less common than they were even a few years ago in my life. So that's a plus but heading into this I think I'm just gonna opt for robot mode because I don't know what else to do and I have to do it in my perfect dream world this will work allow me to actually use my leg again live in less pain we'll get my knee fixed up it'll be good to go and six months from now this will be a very different story for now it is very hard and I kind of hate feeling the toll of the past like two decades of my experiences in surgery and doctors and medicine but it is reality and so I'm gonna face it I'm gonna get it done I'm gonna take it minute by minute maybe even day by day if we're getting wild and crazy so if I'm feeling up to it I will post update videos you can check me on Instagram as I'll probably be posting stories to entertain myself in the hospital if I am not too drugged out of my mind from pain management and I'll let you guys know how it goes but I feel like this stuff is for me important to talk about because so often on social media YouTube, Instagram, TikTok you see people who are like solid whether it's in the world of disability amputees or otherwise but specifically with like amputation one thing that I've learned is that it's not a straight line there are constant setbacks there are really good days and then there are shit months and years sometimes and you have to always be adjusting to it and that can get really exhausting so you gotta learn how to take care of yourself learn how to rest and learn how to mourn the fact that the life that I wanted is not the life that I have right now and I'm also gonna figure out how to pursue and build a life that I want within my current limitations also this is completely off topic but I started working out really hard back in January it's been so fun and I've made a lot of progress in the gym I like the fact that I can see muscle on myself because I was raised to think strong is sort of equated to being like masculine and I'm like no I wanna be strong as hell for jiu-jitsu, for life, for whatever and now I'm gonna have to sit and all my gains are just gonna go down the triash that's an incredibly small thing to complain about and also that's not how bodies work will I be brave enough to go to the gym on crutches with a leg cast on my nubbin? to be determined thank you for listening guys it really blows my mind that you would spend your precious time one of the most valuable resources any of us have listening to me talk hearing my story hearing me out I think that listening is one of the greatest forms of love that we show each other and so genuinely thank you I don't take your ears or eyes for granted thanks for hearing me if you're also going through a tough time right now if you're sad or bummed out or facing shit you just don't wanna deal with I'm in it with you we're gonna get through it even if we don't know how just yet and I think that's all I have to say I'm gonna get back to packing for surgery and then probably cuddling with these puppies they've done a lot of barking during this video there have been lots of pauses for excited dogs to my patrons over on Patreon thank you so much for your continued support it is incredible to me I'll see you on the other side mwah, bye guys that sounded ominous I didn't mean like death I'll see you on the other side of surgery bye guys