My New Normal

Have you ever had staples put into your body? Not for fun, or for pleasure, but as a tool to help you heal. If you have not, let me tell you this, you are not missing anything. As a result of my right, below the knee amputation, I am all kinds of stapled up. There are thirty seven of them, holding a flap of skin over a place that it was never meant to be. And all of it is protecting bone that is just as cut up as the rest of my right leg. Now if that isn't enough to make a person squeamish, I don't know what is. And to top all of that off, it's now starting to itch, which is a good thing healing wise, but because I am still unable to even touch much below the knee without being disgusted, there will be no scratching. So all of this makes for a good time on the right leg.

The left leg is a big concern as well. Because I lost the right foot due to a sore, I am not terrified that the same will happen to the left foot. It has at least one sore before, that I can remember. So far the left foot looks mostly okay. It's getting a bit dried out, so I have to use lotion on it. And several of the toes are getting irritated from constant shoe use, and sock use. You can believe that I am checking that foot daily, but that doesn't necessarily alleviate the fear that I will one day lose it as well. I mean, it did happen to my Uncle Casey. He lost one of his legs many years ago, to the same thing that I lost mine to, and months before his death, he lost the other leg. I feel like I've really let him down here. But I tried. I really did. I did what I was told. And I still lost a foot. Though I do blame myself for some of it, a lot of it was the blame of the doctors, who just didn't find me important enough to save.

Anyhow, that all leads me to a place in my life where I can either just give up. Just say, "I'm done", and not even try any longer. And I could do that. Hell, it would be very easy to do that. But that's not the right path. That's not what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the other option, and work hard at getting to what I think of as "my new normal". I need to learn how to walk again. I need to learn how to ignore the harsh words that will be thrown my way. I need to learn how to be a new father, again, but this time with just one foot. I need to do this for my family. I need to do this for me.

So, where do I go from here? Well, the first step is to have these damned staples removed from my stump. I'm hoping that's coming up here, very soon. With those out, and my leg healing, or healed, maybe then I can look at what's left of my leg, not in disgust, but with hope for the future. I know that the road ahead is long. I don't expect learning to walk with a prosthetic will be easy. Hell, I expect to be the hardest thing that I have ever done. But I will do it. I've always been a bit of a lazy person. I've always been a bit of a quitter. But I won't quit this time. I won't be lazy this time. This time I will work my hardest, to make something great come out of this terrible experience.

I'm crippled now. I will always be crippled now. It is who I am now. But does that have to be all that I am? I don't believe so. I believe that I can be so much more. And from the ashes of my ruined right foot, maybe something great will rise. A new me. A me that even I can be proud of. Sometimes I'll get sad when I think about the normal that I used to have. Sometimes I may even get angry... though I'm not thinking so. I've never been an angry person. There will be times that I'll want to give up. But I'll power through those times. I won't let them drag me down. I have so much to live for. It's time to live for them. If that makes any sense.

Was this all karma, for the mistakes I've made in the past? Was this karma for moving on from a life that hadn't made sense to me in so many years? I don't know. I'm not sure that I believe in karma. But I do know that I won't let it win. If there is karma, I sincerely hope that it is done with my, and my family. We've been through so much that I think it's time for it to move on, and go after someone else. I believe my debt to be paid in full. And I hope that if there is a karma, it believe that my debt has been paid. From this point forward, there's only positive eyes looking forward to the future. The negative eyes... I'm leaving them behind me. Where they belong.