Last Sunday, the 20th of November 2022, was the ten year anniversary of my amputation. Although, if I’m being honest, I was asleep for five days after it happened, which means I haven’t technically lived with being an amputee for ten years until the 25th. So, you know, I guess you can put the title of this post down as being “Clickbait”.
If you have been a follower of my blog then you have probably noticed that it has been quite some time since I last posted. That is because, as always seems to be the case, there has been a lot going on. Including (but not limited to) my wife and me moving into our own house and figuring out how that is all supposed to work.
At least we are doing it at a time when the country is stable…
Anyway, I needed a good reason to finally kick myself back into gear and get on with writing again and well, what better way to do it than milking my “ten year ampuversary” (my sisters words).
That being said, I wasn’t really sure what to write about. There is little point in talking about what happened at the time as I already have a series of posts covering that, doing a Q&A could have been a good idea if I hadn’t already done several and talking about everything I went through in the months after my amputation would undermine a lot of upcoming content.
What Can I Say?
So, how do you mark such an occasion? There is no doubt that ten years ago my life trajectory shifted monumentally and everything that has happened since, both positive and negative has been at least in some part caused by what transpired that day.
It is an inescapable fact that losing my leg was the single most terrible thing that has happened in my life and is something from which I can never escape.
All the mornings I wake up with damage to my leg and have to get around on crutches, feeling embarrassed that I need someone to move my bowl of cereal from the kitchen to the table, every time I decide that I’m going out for a walk but my stump decides “It’s crampin’ time”, being incredibly conscious of how I look when I am walking, watching my reflection in shop windows to check that I’m not limping too much and also watching everyone else’s legs, trying to see how they move.
These things are always with me, even on the days when I feel physically fine, they linger somewhere in the back of my mind.
And then the insidious thoughts creep in. “Who would I have been? What would life be like if I hadn’t lost my leg?”
That’s Too Dark, Say Something Else…
The thing is, I haven’t gotten this far by constantly thinking about the negatives. They shouldn’t be the focus and, to be honest, really don’t need to be.
They’ll let themselves be known without my help.
I don’t know who I would have been in that other life. Every day there are so many seemingly insignificant things that happen that decide which version of ourselves we will become. And then, some days, more obvious things happen.
My amputation was one of those.
What I know for certain is that in the last ten years I have found a love of theatre I never knew I had. Through that I’ve made friends who will probably be stuck with me for life (bad luck). I’ve spent time working with young people across the Highlands which gave me the opportunity to sail around the coast of Scotland.
I’ve been in all kinds of stage shows, from comedy musicals such as “Avenue Q” to much more serious plays like “A Streetcar Named Desire”.
I met a girl, fell in love, got married (all the same person, just to clarify), travelled across the world to spend time in her home country of Nepal and have now seen some of the most breathtaking sights this planet has to offer.
I don’t know what two legged David’s life would have looked like over the past ten years, but I imagine it would have been nothing like that.
And The Point..?
All that being said, I still couldn’t really think of what to write in this post and what the point of it should be. However, as I typed words, hoping they would make some kind of sense, I realised that it doesn’t have to be anything other than an acknowledgement. Something to mark the occasion. Something to say, “hey, it has been ten years since this massive thing happened to me and seeing as I am a blogger, I’m obviously going to write about it.”
I also want to say thank you.
To everyone.
To friends, new and old and even those I haven’t seen in years, for being around when I needed you, making jokes at the most inappropriate times and keeping me somewhat sane.
To my family. I can’t really do justice to everything they have done for me so I won’t even try but, they know what they did.
And of course, to you reading this. If you are new here, welcome, thank you for coming and I hope you like the place. If you have been around for a while, thank you for sticking with me and my ramblings all of this time.
I honestly find it hard to believe that it has been ten years since “The Hoppening.” It feels like it was just yesterday and somehow, also a lifetime ago…
Time eh? It’s all a bit wibbly wobbly I guess.
Thank you for reading.
If this post has piqued your interest and you want to know more about how I ended up becoming half legless, click here.
Stay safe out there and be excellent to each other.
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