There is no question that losing a limb, or gaining any kind of disability, puts a number of limits on the things a person can do.
If you are someone who became disabled later in life, you will more than likely find yourself coming up against challenges in activities that used to be easy. You may even have to give a few up.
This can be incredibly difficult to deal with and I could quite easily list a number of things that I had to let go of after I lost my leg.
However, I am not writing this post to talk about what I lost. Instead, I want to share some of the things that I have been able to do since my amputation. Specifically, things that I only do as a direct result of having one leg.
1. Adopt a new style
I have never been one to shy away from letting people see my prosthetic leg. In fact, it might be fair to say that I enjoy keeping it on show. When you’ve got a leg that has been carefully designed to look as sleek and sexy as my prosthesis, it would be a crime to keep it hidden under long trousers.
That being the case, I have found myself wearing shorts far more often than not over the past twelve and a half (I can’t believe it’s been that long) years.
If I’m going on a night out though, and shorts just don’t cut it, then it is time to get the old kilt on. It might come as a surprise to anyone reading this who doesn’t live in the UK but here in Scotland, people don’t actually wear kilts all the time.
So, using my leg as an excuse to go out rocking the traditional outfit is a great way to keep the tartan from getting too dusty.
In all honesty, this isn’t simply a style choice. There are situations where it’s important to be able to easily access my leg, preferably without having to find a hidden corner where I can drop my trousers.
It can also be useful to make sure that others around me are aware of it. I find myself being offered help, or seats, or quicker access to facilities a lot more frequently when I’ve got my legs out.
This can cause some comfort issues during the winter but, to be fair, I do only have the only leg, so I can only get half as cold anyway. That’s how it works, right?
2. Get on TV
That’s right. You’re reading the words of a big TV star.
Well, maybe not quite.
It’s true, you probably won’t be seeing me leading the next series of Dr Who (although I would love to see the tears flow when the news of a disabled person playing The Doctor breaks), but I have managed to get myself onto a couple of pretty cool productions over the last few years.
There are a lot of TV shows, especially historical pieces, that have scenes taking place during or in the aftermath of battles. To fill these out, they will have people strewn about with various different injuries, all created by the incredibly talented makeup and prosthetic departments these shows employ.
However, when it comes to showing people with more serious injuries, such as a missing leg, it is quite handy for them to have actual amputees on set.
That is where I hop in.
I would love to tell you about all of the different shows my wee beardy face is going to be popping up in but (and this feels cool to write), I’m not actually supposed to talk about them.
So, you’ll just need to keep an eye out the next time you’re flicking between streaming services.
3. Avoid the queues
Whether at theme parks or going through airports, there are a lot of places that allow people with physical disabilities to skip quickly past the lines.
I have occasionally heard some people suggest that this is unfair on others but think of it this way. If an able-bodied person has to stand in a line for thirty minutes to an hour, they probably get some aches and end up pretty frustrated.
I’m not dismissing that by the way, it sucks having to wait, no matter the reason.
But here is the thing, there have been times where I’ve ended up needing to stand for long periods of time while waiting in lines. On these occasions, I was left with pressure sores on my stump which very quickly broke down until they cracked, bled and, in one instance, became infected.
When I get one of these injuries I have to keep my leg off until it heals, which can sometimes take well over a week. If this were to happen in an airport when I’m about to go on a week long holiday, you can probably guess how that trip ends up.
All of the genuine reasons aside though, there is no denying that it does feel good to be sped past painfully long looking queues. Maybe not quite worth the disability, but still a nice bonus.
4. Get Creative
As an amputee living in a world of bipeds, I sometimes find myself coming up against challenges that don’t have readily available solutions.
For instance, the first prosthetic leg I ever received used a lanyard clip system to keep it on my stump. Essentially, it was held on by a bit of string. Very strong string.
However, the clip that… clipped it into place was only made of plastic and wore down quickly. As a result, the string would often slip through it and my leg would come loose.
To solve this (and I do not recommend this to anyone else, I’m just telling you what happened), my dad and our neighbour (both engineers) decided to bolt a much stronger, metal clip from a boat onto my socket.
And with that simple bit of drilling and bolting, the problem of the leg slipping off was solved.
A more recent example (this one doesn’t involve power tools), happened just a couple of months ago.
I had an adjustment made to my leg that caused the foot to become slightly turned out. It was done for comfort reasons and seemed to work pretty well.
However, I do a lot of cycling and upon jumping on my bike, I discovered that the new angle of my foot caused it to be constantly knocked off the pedal.
No problem, there are easy ways to solve this. I’ll just buy a strap to keep my foot in place. I did this and it worked a treat.
There was a slight problem though. Every time I moved the pedal up to a position where I could slot my prosthetic foot into it, the strap would flop down. This was fine at home where I could ask my wife to help me, but once I was out in the woods by myself, it became a bit more of an issue. Because of the hard socket on my leg, I couldn’t bend down far enough to hold the strap up myself while on the bike and if I got off to fix it, the whole thing would flop away again as soon as I got back on.
By sheer dumb luck, I happened to find two of my wife’s hair bobbles at the bottom of the bag I had taken with me. I used them to tie the bottom of the strap against the pedal, keeping it propped up in a position that would allow me to slip the foot into place. This would work as a temporary solution, until I got home.
Of course, here we are, several months later and those same bobbles continue to aid me in my cycling adventures.
If it ain’t broke…
5. Meet Some Really Interesting People
From sitting in my prosthetics centre, chatting with amputees about their fascinating stories, to meeting athletes, technological pioneers and even attending the first Invictus Games, being an amputee has opened the door for me to make connections with people I would have never met otherwise.
There is one guy I got chatting to at an event who, like me, is an above knee amputee. Before he lost his leg, he had been the head of a company that set up stages for music festivals. The stories he told about meeting some of the biggest music artists on the planet were fantastic but what was even more amazing was the the fact that, despite his accident, he had been able to stay in the business.
Of course, he isn’t climbing scaffolding and heaving around heavy equipment anymore, but he continues to oversee the company and, more importantly, still gets to hang out backstage.
I’ve also had the opportunity to meet people at the forefront of prosthetic development, as well as a prosthetist who works on repairing devices for athletes during large events such as the Invictus Games and Paralympics.
That is to name just a couple. I am keeping it short because I can’t give detailed information about everyone here (that be enough writing for at least three separate posts) and a long list of professions would get boring pretty quickly.
6. Scare The Living **** Out Of People.
The first time I discovered this benefit of being an amputee was not long after I got my first prosthetic leg. In the early days, I wasn’t able to wear it for long periods of time and it would often get painful quite suddenly.
This meant that I ended up removing it quickly and leaning it against the nearest wall (when in my own house), and then using my crutches to continue moving about.
One day I leaned it against the patio door in my parents house and without me realising, it slid behind the curtain so that only my foot was sticking out.
A few minutes later, curses and shouts rang through the house as my mum walked into the room and saw what, for a brief moment, appeared to be an intruder hiding behind the curtain.
After the initial laughter had died down I realised that there was perhaps more fun to be had being an amputee than I had initially thought.
And I was correct. From twisting my leg upside down in the middle of random bars while wearing full length trousers, to leaving my foot dangling out of trees, or floating around swimming pools, to Halloween costumes where everyone laughs at me pretending to have my leg chopped off by an axe, only to run screaming when it actually falls to the floor.
I have had the opportunity to pull off some fantastic scares over the years. Sometimes working along, sometimes with a larger team behind me.
Even now, as I write this, my spare leg is sitting in the living room downstairs behind the curtain to our back door. As you can see from the image above, the only sign that it is there are a few toes sticking out, waiting for their next victim.
7. Write This Blog
This one is pretty self explanatory.
If I hadn’t lost my leg, then it is pretty unlikely that I would have started a blog talking about my amputation.
Looking back, it’s pretty cool that this little project I started five years ago in the midst of the COVID pandemic is still going strong… let’s ignore the 16 month break I took last year.
I started writing here because I wanted to share the experience of losing my leg and the recovery process that followed. A process that is still very much ongoing. Which on one hand is a shame but on the other, it means more content for the blog.
Of course, I am still writing those posts but over the years I’ve had (or been given) other ideas of things to write and the blog has grown to become something more than a retelling of my amputation story.
This will be the 61st post I share here and looking back at this collection of ramblings that I’ve cobbled together over the last half decade, I do feel a small amount of pride.
Thank you for reading folks, stay safe and be excellent to each other.
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