 It is one that is damn near impossible. It is so bizarre. To make a call and say I'd like to move forward with the right below knee amputation. What, what kind of call is that to make? What kind of email is that to send? Hello there, my beautiful, lovely, talented internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you so much for joining me here today on Footless Joe, where I am Joe. I'm missing a foot, at least a human foot, a meat foot, this one isn't real. And today I'm going to tell you the story of how I made the decision to cut off my leg. I Marie condoned my life. I got rid of the things that didn't bring me joy and I chopped it off. That is making very light of a serious situation. The reason I'm making this video is because I get messages every day, sincerely, every day from people around the world, around the internet, who are in a similar position to what I was in. Who are having serious problems with their ankle or their feet or their legs and are asking me, should I cut my leg off? Like, should I make this decision? And I want to make it very clear that I am not in a place to advise on that. I so appreciate it and I am honored to hear your stories, but I can't tell you what to do with your life. I made the decision that I thought was best for me. I'm grateful to have made it, but the decision that's right for me is not necessarily going to be the decision that's right for you and it's important to consider all the factors at play. So I'm going to tell my story of how I made the most difficult decision of my life and if it helps you make one for yourself, then I am grateful. But this is just my story and it's not advice. It is only my decision process. Beyond the subject matter that being choosing to amputate my leg, I do think that some things I learned throughout this process of making really hard decisions can apply to anyone. So if you are not facing the risk or the possibility of having to have your leg amputated or having to make that decision, I hope that perhaps some of this video can apply to you as well. I'd be interested to hear if you relate to or agree with or disagree with any of the things that I did or the process that I went through. Thank you to my patrons for sponsoring this video. I'll say a thing or two about Patreon at the end of this video, but I just want to say to each and every one of you who have chose to support this channel through Patreon, thank you. So let's start at the beginning. If you've watched my channel for a little while, you know that I broke my ankle falling off a horse when I was 13 years old. It was a bad break, shattered it, had to have another surgery, had to have another surgery after that, had a procedure to following that, and thus the pattern went. I lived all of my teenage years and my early 20s really having my life paced by the next ankle surgery, the next injection, the next procedure, the next whatever. Now, by the time that I was 27, I was in a lot of pain. I was used to living in pain from years of ankle surgeries and issues, but it got to a point where it was very bad pretty much every day. And I was still doing stuff. I was still walking around. I was still trying to do different activities, but I was in physical agony a lot of the times and I was on a lot of pain medications and I was very unhappy. Back in January of 2018, I received some news about my ankle, realized I had to have another surgery and it was then that I really began thinking about, is this the life that I want to live? Like, is this the best decision to just keep having ankle surgeries to try to salvage a part of my body that is very, very damaged? So in March of 2018, I had that ankle surgery. It didn't help. If anything, it made things worse. So it was really after that last surgery on my ankle that I began thinking, is this the life that I want to live? Because it became very clear that this is the life I was going to have. I think I lived with this understanding of maybe the next surgery will fix it. Maybe the next surgery will make it better. Maybe even a better injection will come out. Maybe it'll come up with an ankle replacement that actually works. Like, yeah, I can do this. I can make it to the next one. And that sort of hope faded as I was faced with the reality that this was not going to get better. This was really not going to get better. There were no good options left. And when I started really facing that and realizing that, I began doing a lot of research. One of my favorite ways of learning about other people's lives is through YouTube. So I looked up as many baloney amputee YouTube videos as I could find. It's one of the big reasons I started this channel because I wanted to add to the resources that people had when learning about amputees because I felt like there weren't enough people sharing their story out there. And I wanted to be a part of that. And I read articles and articles and blog posts and I talked to people and I joined Facebook support groups for amputees and asked questions to those who were willing to answer questions. And then I started talking to my family and friends about this possibility. And then I started talking to my therapist. I actually talked to my therapist before I even talked to a surgeon about this. And I began working through with her this decision for me and if it was the best thing for me and what factors I wasn't considering where my motivation really was. I think it was about August of 2018 that I met with a surgeon and I did not bring up the possibility of amputation. We were just trying to figure out what the next step might be for this little ankle. But I had it in my head already that maybe amputation wouldn't be the worst thing ever. I still wasn't sure if I was like crazy to be considering that or not. But during the course of that appointment he presented me with a couple options. And at the end of that appointment he was like, you know, something else you might want to start thinking about is amputation. And I was like, yes, I absolutely understand that. And he was kind of, I think surprised by my reaction. He was like, oh, okay. So have you considered that before? And we had a conversation. So when he first brought it up as something that might be something to start considering I felt honest relief. I'd been dealing with a broken part of my body for so long that was inhibiting so many parts of my life and leaving me in a lot of pain that it was like, yes, this is the solution. I don't have to do this anymore. But here's something that I think is very important to convey. Solutions seem a lot easier when they're in a single sentence form and you don't have to live it. The idea of getting an amputation and living with a prosthetic limb sounded awesome because then my ankle wouldn't be in pain because my ankle wouldn't exist anymore. But it is so much more complicated than that. I think this applies to a lot of situations in our life where a solution or an idea sounds really good on paper. It sounds like, yes, that would fix all my problems but in reality, it's important to look into the details. It's important to look into the nitty gritty and to not look at things with a rose colored glass. My husband was really good at helping me do this because once I had that conversation with my doctor, I was like, yes, I'm very ready to start making this decision. I think I wanna do it. And he was like, put the brakes on. You need to exhaust every possible idea, every possible solution before doing something that is so final. I think when I first started thinking about this, I was just excited. I was like, yeah, I could be done with my ankle. But Brian was really helpful in bringing me back to reality and being like, yeah, you won't have your ankle but you are going to live life disabled. You are going to live a very different life than most people on this planet that comes with very unique challenges and you need to think it through. And to be honest, he was not on board with the whole amputation idea for quite some time and I'm glad that he wasn't. I'm glad that he really pushed me to think things through. I started talking not only to my husband, but to my family who had been with me through all of this and they were surprisingly pretty understanding of why I would want this and pretty on board with whatever decision I made. I continued working with a therapist. I think that was a really important part of all of this for me because it's really easy to get in your head about things and to go in circles in your head and maybe not to question yourself. And my therapist helped me do that. She helped me piece through how I was making the decision and why I was making this decision and other things to consider and making sure that it wasn't coming from any other kind of place. And that was really helpful. Then I started talking to my friends more in depth, friends who had knew me for two decades, friends who just knew me recently. And I will say that everyone had an opinion on this. It was a little bit overwhelming, especially people who were like outside my immediate friend group. People who in my immediate friend group, listen, understood, gave thoughtful advice, were really supportive of whichever decision I made but had their own opinions. But then people right outside of that group, like co-workers who I wasn't close to and things like that would come up to me randomly and just be like, you should not do that thing. I had a friend who went through something and then she found this solution and it worked for her. So don't cut your leg off. And I was like, cool person who's name I barely know. Thank you for giving advice on the intricacies of my life that you know nothing about. I honestly do appreciate that they were trying to give advice. It was just really overwhelming to hear it from so many sources that were not necessarily informed. So I continued feeling very sincerely hopeful even though I kind of tried to take off the rose color glasses. I really felt good about maybe making this decision because it would allow me a life with hopefully less pain. Yes, it would be difficult but I would be able to do things again and oh my God, that would be amazing. And I felt such joy about this possibility and such darkness about the idea of going through more ankle surgeries because there was no hope that my ankle would get better. Let's make that very clear. There was no hope of that. There are other things that we could do to sort of buy it more time or just try different things. By the way, it just started storming outside if you hear brain or anything, that's what it is. But nothing was gonna make it better. Nothing was going to actually fix it. There was too much wrong with it. But after thinking about this for a few weeks after having a lot of conversations with people telling me not to, to wait because this decision was final and I could take time with it. Like I was like, okay, I'll just, I'll go through with the other surgery, whatever. Oh gosh, it's really getting, it's really getting stormy out. Maybe I should just come close to the microphone. This is the time I have to film this video. So I'm just gonna keep talking through the storm. The storm is a very good analogy for making difficult decisions, isn't it? Anyways, after thinking about this for weeks, I made the decision not to have the amputation. The biggest reason for that is I'd gotten a lot of advice and input from people who were supportive of me as a human being saying, hey, you don't have to make this decision now. You can wait, you can make this decision in two years. You can make it in 10 months. And I was like, yeah, you're right, I'm gonna do that. But as soon as I made that call to my doctor, I made that call to my doctor saying, yeah, let's go through with the other surgery. I felt awful. I felt really, really horrible, consistently. And after about a week, a week and a half, I think I had a real heart to heart with my husband and said, I don't think I can do this anymore. I don't think I can go through another surgery and another surgery on my stupid ankle that hurts all the time, that is so messed up, that is so scarred and broken. It is not functional anymore. I don't think I can do this anymore. And he said, I understand, I support you regardless. Make sure you know what you're doing. One thing he told me to do was to make sure I talked to someone who was unhappy about amputation, because it's easy to find people who are like, I'm an amputee and I'm doing things, but it's harder to find people who are like, I'm an amputee, I made this decision and I hate it. So I did find someone like that. I found someone who was willing to talk to me about how miserable life was for them and how sincerely unhappy with their decision they were. And that gave me a lot of food for thought. And eventually after talking to people and thinking and journaling and all of that, I made the decision to go forward with amputation. And when I made that decision, I felt so much hope and so much relief because for the first time in my life, I think I can legitimately say that, I felt like I really knew what was best for my body, for myself. I had other people making decisions about me and my body for a long time in a variety of ways. And I always just sort of went along with it. And for me, making this decision was a big part of taking back my own autonomy over my own body and saying, you know what, this is mine. I'm going to make a decision about this for myself. And I knew in my bones that it was the right thing to do. But even though I felt that way, I knew that feelings can be misleading, right? We all know that. And so I was terrified of the moment that I woke up from surgery. I was terrified, I woke up from my amputation that I would be like, Joe, what have you done? And I would hate myself and there would be nothing that I could do and I'd be stuck living in regret forever and I was very scared of that possibility. If you go way back on my channel, there's a video that I made 24 hours before my amputation where I think I mentioned being concerned about that. But I was like, you know, we'll see what happens. And we did see what happened. And what happened is I woke up from surgery in a lot of pain because the nerve block didn't work. But even through that pain, I remember thinking, I'm so glad that it's gone. I am so glad that it's gone and it's done with. I made a video about, you know, how to decide to amputate or not about a year and a half ago. And a lot has changed since then. Since I made that video, I have, oh, had another surgery, had another amputation. Things have not gone smoothly, right? Here's the thing about making really difficult, unique decisions. There are gonna be consequences on either side. Oftentimes I feel like it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't. And really the only option you have is to pick one and then do your best to make peace with that decision. And that was definitely one of those situations for me. There was no good option and I was mad. I spent a lot of time and sometimes I revisited it being very angry that I had to make this choice. And sometimes I felt like I regretted this decision because I was so upset. But in reality, when I thought it through, I was upset that I ever had to do this. I was upset that I fell off a horse and the healing didn't work out right. And then I had to go through any of this in the first place. And those emotions are perfectly normal and it's okay to feel them. Making this kind of a choice, it's impossible. I honestly believe it's impossible to know what you're gonna feel like after. It's impossible to consider all the possibilities. It's impossible to properly prepare. All you can do is the best that you can do. So I tried to make my house as ready as I needed it to be. I live in a house that has two sets of stairs which is not ideal for recovering from amputation. But I tried to make some modifications and I tried to put things in place for my emotional recovery because I was like, I'm probably gonna have a hard time adjusting to this, right? Probably, yeah, I guess so. Just side note, yeah, it's incredibly emotionally exhausting to adjust to life without a limb, but it's very possible. I tried to ask all the questions that I needed to ask. I met with an amputee in real life, a baloney amputee who had made the same decision that I had at about the same age. They were glad they made that decision and I asked them a bunch of questions and then I was told answers to questions. I didn't even think to ask and I began to realize that this is probably gonna be pretty complicated. But the reality of something is often a lot more complicated than the decision. For me, the decision to amputate was one that came down to a quality of life question. I didn't want to live a life where I was living surgery to surgery in a ton of pain and couldn't do the things that I loved. So I didn't. So I made the decision to take a huge risk and do something drastic in the hopes that it would pay off, right? It was a gamble of sorts. It was an educated gamble. I did all the research I could. I talked to all the people that I could. But at the end of the day, I could be in horrible phantom pain every single day. Instead, it's bearable. But there was absolutely a possibility that the phantom pain of amputation could have been just as bad as living with the ankle that I had. That was a risk I chose to take. It was entirely possible that fitting a prosthetic wouldn't work for me. There are a lot of people who cannot wear prosthetic legs, prosthetic limbs or who choose not to because they're uncomfortable because they don't like them. There are a lot of reasons why people don't. There was a real possibility that I wouldn't be able to walk at all, that a prosthetic leg wouldn't work for me. There were a lot of risks that I had to consider and it was important that I consider all of them realistically. But at the end of the day, I made the best decision that I could with the information I had at the time. I'm incredibly grateful that I made that decision. I am so glad that I decided to go through with this because it was the best decision for me. But like I said, it came with a lot of complication. It was exponentially more exhausting than I ever could have imagined. The constant setbacks, the things that don't go right are overwhelming and hard to number. Just as a brief overview, when I was supposed to get fitted for my prosthetic leg, my first leg, two days before that, I fell down in a restaurant with a super greasy floor and hurt my limb very badly. That eventually led to another surgery months later when I couldn't wear a prosthetic up until that time. That surgery didn't work and it was revealed that there were deeper issues because of the fall than I had to have more of my leg cut off in August of 2019. This has not been a simple process but I think owning that decision for me and knowing that it came down to me and no one else that I made that decision for myself and whatever the outcome was, I was going to own it. I was gonna make the best of it. I was gonna grieve it but I was going to find a way to get through it was important for me to know. Something else that I did that I think was helpful for me was to separate the emotions from like the rational side of things and to deal with the rational first. I kind of looked at all the statistical things about amputees and all the life changes, all of that and what adjustments would have to be made and what life could realistically look at and what my life looked like without doing that and kind of compared the two and thought, okay, will this be better or not? I tried to do all of that fairly non-emotionally and it was only after I made the decision that from a realistic, irrational perspective, this did seem like the best thing to do that I tried to sort of feel some of the emotions I had around it because emotions are very important. I like to forget that from time to time and stuff them all down but life doesn't work very well that way. As I was making this decision, I kind of put emotions aside for a moment, decided what the most rational, realistic thing to do was and then I revisited those emotions. I brought those emotions back into the process because emotions are very, very important and I listened to those and listened to what I felt and sort of separating the pieces and making a logical decision first and then looking at the emotions and bringing the emotions into the decision I think was useful for me because I was able to look at things rationally with more of a clear head and then feel what I needed to feel. I do think that that was useful for me. It's sort of a principle of stoicism which I appreciate some of the concepts of but the important part to note there is that you do still have to feel things and emotions are a very important part of any decision but not to let yourself become completely overwhelmed or paralyzed by them was something that was vital for me. At the end of the day, there's no one else who could have made this decision for me and if this is a decision that you are facing, no one else can make this for you. No one else is going to have to go through the pain, physical, mental, emotional of losing a limb. The social adjustment, dealing with the stare and dealing with phantom pain, feeling different and uncomfortable and dealing with the body aches after you're learning to walk on a prosthetic leg and not being able to sleep because of phantom pain some nights and just all of this stuff. No one is going to have to deal with that but you. There may be people in your life who are gonna also have to deal with sincere, serious adjustments and that's important to consider as well but this is you, this is your decision, this is your body, if this is something that you are facing. Know that there is no right or wrong decision. Just because I did it doesn't mean that you should do if you're in a similar position at all, please don't take my story as a reason to do it or not to do it because every situation is different but if you bring in first the consulting of surgeons and doctors and then your family and your friends and people who know you, people who care about you, therapists, others who might be able to give wise advice, I would highly recommend that you do all those things in the process of making this decision for yourself. It is one that is damn near impossible. It is so bizarre to make a call and say I'd like to move forward with the right below me amputation. What, like what, what kind of call is that to make? What kind of email is that to send? What kind of thing is that to make a choice on? It's a weird one for sure but it's one that I promise you can find your way through. You will find the right answer for you. It can take a while and it's okay if it takes a while. In fact, I'd recommend that it takes a while. These sort of decisions are not to be rushed. This little ray of sunshine is Cakes by the way. She's my little kitty cat, my little fuzz ball of light and happiness. She's now curling up on my journal to cuddle with a hardcover book because that sounds like a good idea. If this is a decision that you're facing, my heart is with you. I know that it's a really hard one to make. I know that it's confusing and overwhelming but you will find your way through this. If I sent you this video in response to you asking me a question about what you should or shouldn't do, know that I feel for you. I've been there. It's so challenging, so challenging but at the end of the day you will make the right decision for you. Make sure that you're consulting with people. Make sure that you're taking time for yourself to think about things, to feel things, to research. I promise you there is a way to find peace throughout this process, whatever your decision may be about whatever major thing you are facing. Thank you for hanging out with me and Cakes here for a few minutes today. I really appreciate it. Thank you to my patrons for sponsoring this video. Patreon is a platform where you can financially support the creators that you care about. If this is a channel you want to support in that way, check out the link on screen or down below. There are some perks to joining like a video message directly to you at certain tiers or signed print of artwork. So if those are things you're interested in, check it out at the link down below. To you watching this video, thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me. If this is something you are facing, if you're facing some kind of major challenge in your life, I'm so sorry for what you're going through. You are not alone. I promise you, you're not alone. You could be anywhere in the world doing anything you chose to hang out with me and Cakes for a few minutes and I really appreciate that. I love you guys, I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video. Bye guys. 🎵Hand her from the sky all about...🎵