It has been about thirteen months since I had my right foot amputated. During that time I have faced many challenges that normal, two-footed people don't have to deal with. There is a long list of obvious challenges that I needed to overcome, that are far too numerous to name.
The challenges that would immediately pop into your head if you were reading a post such as this can probably go without being mentioned. The toughest is, of course, mobility. It's hard to walk with just one foot. There's a lot of quick, and harsh falling over. It's difficult to move forward when you go to step down on a foot that is no longer there. I can't tell you how often I spend more time picking myself up than just stepping forward. However, I don't feel the need to talk about all of these tougher challenges in this post. This time I just want to focus on a couple of the smaller things that you wouldn't think about before reading this. Hell, I didn't even think about these things when I learned that the piggies on my right foot would all be heading out permanently for some roast beef. Mmm... roast beef.
A couple of months ago my ex-wife called me a "one-footed freak". And while I assumed that I would be taking some insults from people that don't me, I didn't really expect it from the mother of three of my children. Although, I guess I probably should have. She's still fairly angry at me, two years later. I totally expected stares, but what I didn't bank on was mean words. I mean, people can clearly see that life has already decided to use both feet, and kick me when I was down. So why the harsh words? Is it not bad enough that I can't just pop out of bed in the middle of the night, and go to the bathroom without the struggle of either putting on my prosthetic, or unfolding my walker quietly? And it has to be quietly, as my nine month old daughter wakes up very easily.
Speaking of going to the bathroom, I need to pop to the loo. Back in a jiffy.
((Author's note: It was at this point that I quickly went to the bathroom. It was easy now, because I already had my prosthetic on, so I didn't need to go through the hassle of reattaching my fake foot. Isn't technology a fucking peach?))
Since I was already in the bathroom, let's go back in there... together. Let me tell you about what a pain in the ass getting a "quick" shower is. First of all, you "normal" folk just sort of get undressed, and get into the shower. The process is a bit more for me now. First I have to remember to bring my shower chair into the bathroom. And with my fantastic memory, I forget that first step more often than I'd care to share with you all. Let's just say that I forget it plenty often.
The second step is to remember to pull my pants off before I take my fake leg off and sit down on the bathroom throne. If I forget that step, I have to balance on one foot to take them off. That's not overly difficult anymore, but can be a bit annoying. Taking my fake leg off isn't so hard, and remembering to put the dirty "liner" (the big piece of plastic like material that goes on my stump before anything else) on the liner stand (a plastic tube that I use to dry, and store the liner) is usually somewhat easy for my scattered brain.
It's after this part that I sometimes realize that I forgot my shower seat, so I have to put my liner back on, and "step" into my fake leg so that I can fetch the shower chair. I swear I would forget my right foot if it weren't attached to me. Er… wait a minute. Once I've reversed the process, grabbed the chair, and put it carefully into the shower, I can "unreverse" the process. Trust me, that makes perfect sense.
In 2017, when my girlfriend and I found this place, we didn't really pay that much attention to the "oh shit" bar that was affixed to the bathroom wall. Who would have thunk that a year later that bar would be a sort of lifeline for my bathroom time? I need that thing to pull myself up off of the "bathroom throne" (the toilet, eh), and help me to carefully hop all the way back, into the small space between the toilet and shower, so that I can carefully ease myself onto the chair.
Once I'm in the shower, most everything is the same as any normal shower, minus the standing up part. So we'll leave me at this part for now, alone, and naked, and trying not to drop the soap, as that presents a whole new set of challenges. So, while I clean myself up, and wash my dirty liner, I'll leave you with these words from our sponsors:
((Hey all, I'm Rob's sponsor. I'm here now to sell you a bridge in Wyoming. It's a pretty nice bridge, about five lanes wide, and two miles long. Just big enough for your mom to travel down. This bridge was built with great care for her bad attitude, and wide girth. It cost us millions to make it, but we're going to let it go for the low low price of your soul. That's right! For your soul, we'll let you have this bridge as your own, to do with as you fit. And if you don't want the bridge, well, my ginger friend Rob will take your soul anyway. Because that's just what gingers do! Call now, as we have a heavily armed operator standing by, waiting to take your soul...er… I mean, waiting to take your call. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post)).
Hey there, I'm out of the shower, after carefully balancing with my only foot on the rug that I had to slide over with that foot, because I always forget to move it over there before getting into the tub. Without it, I might slip. And since I don't have two feet, there is no second foot to catch myself from falling into the tub, and likely hurt something. Lifting myself by the "oh shit" bar, and lowering myself slowly to the throne again is always fun, and slow process. It's here that I usually balance on my remaining foot, and dry most of myself off. This part isn't too bad. My second liner goes on first, followed by however many socks that I need to use on my stump for the day.
Did I mention those damned socks yet? These things are such a delight. They come in three sizes. The large is a "5", meaning that it has got the thickness of five socks. They are larger than normal socks, and are used to give extra padding to my "test socket", as I got this thing when the girth of my stump was quite a bit bigger. The medium is a "3" and that means... well, you get the point And the smallest is just one. I need these to make sure that my stump is nice and comfy within my fake leg. It kinda looks like this picture. That top part is where I slide my stump in, until it's nice and snug. These socks are mandatory to my day, having to adjust the amount I have many times throughout the day, so that I'm not crunching around on the bone of my stump (I love that it's no longer a leg down there, just a stump!). After I get my socks, and liner on, there's this piece of hard rubbery stuff that I roll up, slowly, and carefully, that creates a suction to keep what remains of my leg from coming out of this contraption, and spilling me onto the ground. Something that hasn't happened yet, and I really hope that it doesn't. I can't imagine that that experience would be overly satisfying. And to be honest, it sounds like it would be pretty damn painful, and would cause a myriad of new issues.
Getting my clothes on is usually not too bad, as long as I remember to put my underwear and pants on before I put my leg on. If I forget, well, I never take my glorious red shoe off of my fake foot, so I have to force my pants on over it. Which isn't all that bad, but can be just a bit annoying. Putting my left shoe on usually isn't too big of a deal. So I won't bore you with those details. Although if you want to take a moment and just imagine me putting on a shoe, I'll wait just a moment before starting the next paragraph.
((Intermission music plays here. Something about going to the kitchen to grab yourself a snack. And if you are getting snack, bring me back a drink. My fingers get pretty parched after "talking" for this long))
Now that I'm finally done getting all of the stank off me, and my fake leg is on my real stump, I'm done with this entire process. And if I remember to take my shower chair out, and put it back in the hallway (the only place we've really found for it to go), I don't have to pay my girlfriend's daughter a dollar. If I do forget, which I often do (my memory has more holes in it than... something with a lot of holes), well... she gets stuck putting it away, and the least I can do is give her a dollar.
And there you have it. That is how you shower a crippled ginger. I hope that you have all learned something from this post. I know that I have. I've learned to laugh, to love, and to care just a little bit more, deep down in my cold, dead, ginger heart.
Being a cripple isn't all that bad when I have the prosthetic leg on (which is most of the day any more). There's more to it than meets the eye, but thanks to technology I don't even think about it a lot of the time. Still, there is plenty of time to think about it, and dwell on it. Especially at night in bed, or when I need to take a damn shower. Thanks for reading my harrowing saga. And stay tuned next week for all of the work that goes into building a bridge in Wyoming!
Take care, my friends. And tempt not that fates.
The challenges that would immediately pop into your head if you were reading a post such as this can probably go without being mentioned. The toughest is, of course, mobility. It's hard to walk with just one foot. There's a lot of quick, and harsh falling over. It's difficult to move forward when you go to step down on a foot that is no longer there. I can't tell you how often I spend more time picking myself up than just stepping forward. However, I don't feel the need to talk about all of these tougher challenges in this post. This time I just want to focus on a couple of the smaller things that you wouldn't think about before reading this. Hell, I didn't even think about these things when I learned that the piggies on my right foot would all be heading out permanently for some roast beef. Mmm... roast beef.
A couple of months ago my ex-wife called me a "one-footed freak". And while I assumed that I would be taking some insults from people that don't me, I didn't really expect it from the mother of three of my children. Although, I guess I probably should have. She's still fairly angry at me, two years later. I totally expected stares, but what I didn't bank on was mean words. I mean, people can clearly see that life has already decided to use both feet, and kick me when I was down. So why the harsh words? Is it not bad enough that I can't just pop out of bed in the middle of the night, and go to the bathroom without the struggle of either putting on my prosthetic, or unfolding my walker quietly? And it has to be quietly, as my nine month old daughter wakes up very easily.
Speaking of going to the bathroom, I need to pop to the loo. Back in a jiffy.
((Author's note: It was at this point that I quickly went to the bathroom. It was easy now, because I already had my prosthetic on, so I didn't need to go through the hassle of reattaching my fake foot. Isn't technology a fucking peach?))
Since I was already in the bathroom, let's go back in there... together. Let me tell you about what a pain in the ass getting a "quick" shower is. First of all, you "normal" folk just sort of get undressed, and get into the shower. The process is a bit more for me now. First I have to remember to bring my shower chair into the bathroom. And with my fantastic memory, I forget that first step more often than I'd care to share with you all. Let's just say that I forget it plenty often.
The second step is to remember to pull my pants off before I take my fake leg off and sit down on the bathroom throne. If I forget that step, I have to balance on one foot to take them off. That's not overly difficult anymore, but can be a bit annoying. Taking my fake leg off isn't so hard, and remembering to put the dirty "liner" (the big piece of plastic like material that goes on my stump before anything else) on the liner stand (a plastic tube that I use to dry, and store the liner) is usually somewhat easy for my scattered brain.
It's after this part that I sometimes realize that I forgot my shower seat, so I have to put my liner back on, and "step" into my fake leg so that I can fetch the shower chair. I swear I would forget my right foot if it weren't attached to me. Er… wait a minute. Once I've reversed the process, grabbed the chair, and put it carefully into the shower, I can "unreverse" the process. Trust me, that makes perfect sense.
In 2017, when my girlfriend and I found this place, we didn't really pay that much attention to the "oh shit" bar that was affixed to the bathroom wall. Who would have thunk that a year later that bar would be a sort of lifeline for my bathroom time? I need that thing to pull myself up off of the "bathroom throne" (the toilet, eh), and help me to carefully hop all the way back, into the small space between the toilet and shower, so that I can carefully ease myself onto the chair.
Once I'm in the shower, most everything is the same as any normal shower, minus the standing up part. So we'll leave me at this part for now, alone, and naked, and trying not to drop the soap, as that presents a whole new set of challenges. So, while I clean myself up, and wash my dirty liner, I'll leave you with these words from our sponsors:
((Hey all, I'm Rob's sponsor. I'm here now to sell you a bridge in Wyoming. It's a pretty nice bridge, about five lanes wide, and two miles long. Just big enough for your mom to travel down. This bridge was built with great care for her bad attitude, and wide girth. It cost us millions to make it, but we're going to let it go for the low low price of your soul. That's right! For your soul, we'll let you have this bridge as your own, to do with as you fit. And if you don't want the bridge, well, my ginger friend Rob will take your soul anyway. Because that's just what gingers do! Call now, as we have a heavily armed operator standing by, waiting to take your soul...er… I mean, waiting to take your call. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post)).
Hey there, I'm out of the shower, after carefully balancing with my only foot on the rug that I had to slide over with that foot, because I always forget to move it over there before getting into the tub. Without it, I might slip. And since I don't have two feet, there is no second foot to catch myself from falling into the tub, and likely hurt something. Lifting myself by the "oh shit" bar, and lowering myself slowly to the throne again is always fun, and slow process. It's here that I usually balance on my remaining foot, and dry most of myself off. This part isn't too bad. My second liner goes on first, followed by however many socks that I need to use on my stump for the day.
Did I mention those damned socks yet? These things are such a delight. They come in three sizes. The large is a "5", meaning that it has got the thickness of five socks. They are larger than normal socks, and are used to give extra padding to my "test socket", as I got this thing when the girth of my stump was quite a bit bigger. The medium is a "3" and that means... well, you get the point And the smallest is just one. I need these to make sure that my stump is nice and comfy within my fake leg. It kinda looks like this picture. That top part is where I slide my stump in, until it's nice and snug. These socks are mandatory to my day, having to adjust the amount I have many times throughout the day, so that I'm not crunching around on the bone of my stump (I love that it's no longer a leg down there, just a stump!). After I get my socks, and liner on, there's this piece of hard rubbery stuff that I roll up, slowly, and carefully, that creates a suction to keep what remains of my leg from coming out of this contraption, and spilling me onto the ground. Something that hasn't happened yet, and I really hope that it doesn't. I can't imagine that that experience would be overly satisfying. And to be honest, it sounds like it would be pretty damn painful, and would cause a myriad of new issues.Getting my clothes on is usually not too bad, as long as I remember to put my underwear and pants on before I put my leg on. If I forget, well, I never take my glorious red shoe off of my fake foot, so I have to force my pants on over it. Which isn't all that bad, but can be just a bit annoying. Putting my left shoe on usually isn't too big of a deal. So I won't bore you with those details. Although if you want to take a moment and just imagine me putting on a shoe, I'll wait just a moment before starting the next paragraph.
((Intermission music plays here. Something about going to the kitchen to grab yourself a snack. And if you are getting snack, bring me back a drink. My fingers get pretty parched after "talking" for this long))
Now that I'm finally done getting all of the stank off me, and my fake leg is on my real stump, I'm done with this entire process. And if I remember to take my shower chair out, and put it back in the hallway (the only place we've really found for it to go), I don't have to pay my girlfriend's daughter a dollar. If I do forget, which I often do (my memory has more holes in it than... something with a lot of holes), well... she gets stuck putting it away, and the least I can do is give her a dollar.
And there you have it. That is how you shower a crippled ginger. I hope that you have all learned something from this post. I know that I have. I've learned to laugh, to love, and to care just a little bit more, deep down in my cold, dead, ginger heart.
Being a cripple isn't all that bad when I have the prosthetic leg on (which is most of the day any more). There's more to it than meets the eye, but thanks to technology I don't even think about it a lot of the time. Still, there is plenty of time to think about it, and dwell on it. Especially at night in bed, or when I need to take a damn shower. Thanks for reading my harrowing saga. And stay tuned next week for all of the work that goes into building a bridge in Wyoming!
Take care, my friends. And tempt not that fates.
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