My Seventh Ampu-versary

Today marks seven years since I left the ranks of the "ten-toed freaks," as my gimp friends from ski-camp taught me to say. (smiley face!)

I didn't have a bonfire this year, or a Leg Party to commemorate the original spontaneous celebration with a few close friends. (No party, and I mean NONE, is as insane as carousing while burning your leg in effigy two nights before your above-knee amputation. 

The surgery in 2007 was the culmination of six months of lobbying doctors to cut off my fused, worn-out leg, ten years of increasing pain and decreasing mobility, and a grand total of thirty-one years fearing what would happen to my weird stiff knee. It was agony to tackle the decision; it was cathartic to have to tell my story over and over and over in a medical setting:

Osteomyelitis, a gruesome and excruciating bone infection at age thirteen in 1975 and 1976, untreated because my parents were Christian Scientists; an auto-fused knee I could limp on,  denial of the whole nightmare, and a mindset that made me tackle every challenge that came my way, from race horses to my own riding stable in a barn I built myself. And finally, after intensive therapy, supportive friendships, and time, the self-knowledge to make this choice. 

It was a hard sell to the specialists, but they came around. It's a decision I've never regretted.

My goal for this next year of amputee-hood is to be more active. The ski week in January was the first time I hung out with other amps and folks legally blind or in wheelchairs. We traveled in a pack of 'chairs and crutches, made terrible jokes and got raucous in restaurants.  I felt like a horse finally running with the herd. 

It made me realize that, from all those years when I was so determined not to let my stiff leg prevent me from trying ANYTHING, I sailed into amputee-world with the same attitude: Dammit, I'll do it myself!!   ...But it's limited me. It's stopped me short from some activities.

At what I continue to think of as "ski camp" last month--and at Greek Peak every weekend--adaptive skiing is a whole culture of wonderful people working together. It is assumed you (I) need help; it is offered generously and matter-of-factly, along with encouragement and praise. It turned on a light in my head; it softened me up and helped me relax. Reminded me to trust. Ask. And reach out.

I want to ski. This summer I want to try an adaptive bicycle, a recumbent hand-powered one, to see if I like it. There are programs out there, opportunities I want to try. And I'm going to start riding my horse again this spring. It's been a few years, but now Laredo's at a local barn where there are rings, pens--and friends who want me to doff my leg, climb up on the fence and hop on my mare. 

It's taken me a few years. But I'm starting to hit my one-legged stride. 

My ampu-versary

In 2007 the Academy Awards were held the Sunday night before my amputation. The surgery was scheduled for 8 am, Monday February 26. The night before, I was home with my older daughter (17 at the time), my sister and my cousin who'd each driven eight hours to be with me.

We'd had an impromptu party on Saturday night. It had featured strong margaritas, loud music, and a giant paper leg we burned in effigy in the snow outside. It was a rowdy, over-the-top celebration, a send-off I called my Leg's Retirement Party. But all day Sunday I paced and trembled, too stressed to speak to anyone. When a well-wishing neighbor stopped by, rather than answer the door, I hid. I waited for the hours to pass. I endured. I was ready; I just wanted to go.

That Sunday night, my daughter took photos of me in shorts with my left leg. Later she told me I had the dead, sunken eyes of a concentration camp survivor. Then we watched the Oscars with my cousin and my sister. We watched them straight through but still I can't name a single film or actor mentioned that night.

In the morning I fed my appaloosa in her run-in stall where she was free to come and go. Laredo munched her grain seriously, nose deep in the bucket, breath swirling up in clouds of vapor. Her neck was warm and her thick winter coat soft against my face. the smell and feel of her was like oxygen, like hope. I pressed my left leg against her left foreleg. I wanted the strength of her smooth tendon, knee and muscle as its last impression.

I haven't regretted it, not since the moment I woke up in Recovery with my thigh a bandaged stump. It's complicated but so is every life. Here's to my next thirty-five years, or more. 
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