I hope everyone had a great Holiday weekend. I am still recovering from the Thanksgiving weekend myself, it may take a couple more days. Overall, it was a pretty uneventful weekend. I tried to do some writing yesterday, but that didn’t work out like I had planned. I have a few posts for this week that I need to finish off and then publish. I have a couple of pretty funny stories that I will share with you this week. So back to recovering for me, and I will return with regular updates tomorrow.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, I did for sure. I am really trying to get in the habit of writing on here more. I really appreciate your patience with me on this little project. I know I have had lulls where I haven’t posted much, but I am trying to get better. Today’s post is going to be short and sweet, I really just wanted to posts to stay in the habit of posting something on a regular basis. I have the day off so I am going to take advantange of that and get out into the woods and enjoy some nature. I probably wont post over the weekend, but remind me Monday to tell you about me short lived run as a drummer in a country band.

I hope all of you have a very happy Thanksgiving. I know I have more things than I can count to be thankful for. I am not even going to try to list all of the things I have to be thankful for, because  we would be hear all day, and lets all be honest you would probably much rather be chowing down on some Turkey and dressing than listening to me ramble on.

In all seriousness, I hope known of the things I write on here come off as whining or complaining, because that’s just not who I am. The people around me that know me the best know that is just not something I do. I think it’s a fine line between writing about these things and putting them out there without seeming like I am complaining about them. The way I view things and my outlook on life began when I was very young. I started going to the Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas when I was only a couple of years old. Even before I can remember I was making trips to this hospital and being seen by and worked on by doctors from all over. As I got a little older I started to get a little perspective on myself and the other children that were patients at that hospital. When you are able to walk into a hospital and see five or ten or fifty other kids that are in wheel chairs that arent able to walk at all, it really becomes kind of sobering. I realized very early on that as different as I was, I could be way worse off than I am, and that I should be very thankful for everything I have. I realize that in the bigger picture of it all the minor little issues I have and some of the annoying things I write about don’t really matter at all. I sincerely hope you know that when I write about not being able to go through metal detectors, or my leg making embarrassing sounds, or whatever else, that I am not complaining at all. I am really and truly thankful that I can share some of these things with you and I thank you for  reading.

Now enough rambling, I am off to eat some turkey and watch some football (go Cowboys), you should do the same.

Sometimes the little annoyances that come with being an amputee can be very minor, other times they can be a real drag. Either way, I just kind of roll with it. It doesn’t really do any good to complain about things, but for the sake of this blog and letting you in on what its like to be me, I am making it a point to post about some of the things that can really suck sometimes. In the grand scheme of things, none of these things really matter, and I am thankful that I don’t have bigger and worse things to blog about.

So on to annoyance number seven. Since my foot was taken off right at the ankle I don’t have a lot of clearance between the end of my stump and the ground. This limits the type of prosthetic foot that I can get. My prosthetic leg goes up to my knee and it is two pieces, the leg and the foot. The foot is connected to the leg via a large metal bolt. I don’t fly so I dont have to worry about airports, but I do like to attend sporting events and concert, both of which like to use metal detectors to check people that are entering. If it one of the walk through types, I know have some explaining to do. If it is one of the hand held varieties and the person doing the wanding isn’t real thorough I can get through them, but if they are doing their job right, I have some explaining to do. Most of the time, I can simply tell the person I have wear a prosthetic leg that  has metal hardware and they let me pass with no problems. A couple of times though I have had to show them the leg and after that they were cool. It’s just always fun knowing that even after I empty my pockets and put everything in the little basket, I am still going to make the machine go beep!

Do you ever do something and then later start thinking about it and wished you could take it back or at least go back and fix it? I sure do. I have done it a couple of times since I started this blog, but the beauty of blogging is that you can just go back and fix it. There have been a couple of times that I have hit that publish button and logged out only to come back fifteen minutes later and click the edit button. Last week I posted about phantom pains that come with being an amputee. I clicked submit, logged out thirty minutes later I was going over that post in my head and debating on “fixing it”. I titled the post Reason # 13 Why I hate being an amputee and even though I mentioned in the post that I didn’t really hate being an amputee I still felt like I should have come up with a better way to word the title than that. The truth is, I don’t hate being an amputee. There are times when it can be a pain in the hind-end but most of the time it’s just not that big of a deal. It is definitely something that you get used to over time, and the little annoyances are just that…annoyances. So I think I will use my magical administrative powers and go back and edit those post that have that title and change the name to something that more closely reflects how I feel about being an amputee. From now on when I post about things like that that annoy me, I will use the title Amputee Annoyance instead of Reasons I hate being an amputee. I realize that none of this probably matters to any of you, but I thought it was something I should change if for no other reason other than making me look less like a bitter amputee. I am a very accepting, well adjusted, not bitter at all amputee, but I do still get a little annoyed sometimes.

Have you ever see Gone Fishing, with Joe Pesci and Danny Glover? Its a fun little movie about two fishing buddies on a fishing trip. Those of you that know me know how I am with movies. For those of you that don’t know me, let me explain a little bit. I probably watch too many movies, and as a result I relate a lot of stuff in life to movies. A lot of times when something funny happens or someone says something, I will think of a scene in a movie that relates to the situation. I end up quoting movies a lot, and most of the time the people around me don’t have a clue what I am talking about. There are a couple of exceptions, one being my brother, who will finish the line I start quoting and we laugh hysterically while everyone else just looks at us like we are in our own little world. In Gone Fishing, there is this scene where the two main characters, Joe and Gus, end up in this fancy restaurant and are totally out of their element. They order wine, something nice, and when the waiter brings it they don’t really know what to do. The waiter pours Joe a small sample of the wine and Joe says “That’s it? Hey Kirk, I’m not a little kid you know, I can drink a full glass”. I have always thought that whole scene, especially that line, was pretty funny.

There are times when the missing fingers become an issue, when dealing with other people. For the most part hand to hand transactions (like exchanging money with a cashier or being handed a sack of food at the drive in)go smoothly and without any incidents. I say most of the time because we all know that there are exceptions to every rule. Occasionally someone catches me off guard, or vice-versa, and said transactions don’t go so smoothly. For example, I wen through the drive-thru at McDonalds the other day for a tasty Third Pound Angus burger. I pay with my debit card and pull up to the next window where the lady proceeds to hand me my medium sweet tea. As I reach for it with both hands, because that’s how you do it when you are missing fingers, the lady says “Oh! you got it hun?”. Now this is not my first rodeo, I have been handed many, many, sweet teas in my life and mostly with out incident. I know this lady wasn’t trying to be mean or rude, she just wanted to make sure I had a good handle on it and I am alright with that, so I just politely nod and let her know that I do in fact have it. I take my tea, and she hands me my sack of food and again we go through the same routine. She asks if I “got it” and I acknowledge that I “got it” and mission accomplished. I have my food, and although it kind of bothers me a little when people do that, I know she was just trying to be nice and I do appreciate the thought behind it.

A few years ago me and a couple of co-workers, you know the ones, went to lunch at the local BBQ place. Living in a small town there were not a lot of choices for lunch, and so we were no strangers to this place. All of the waitresses were friendly and most of them knew us, and most of the time lunch was pretty routine. The food at this place is pretty good, but the sweet tea is where it’s at. They don’t mess around with their glasses either, they have the standard red restaurant glasses, but they have the really big ones which is good because I like me some sweet tea. On this particular day we all walk in and sit down. The waitress comes and takes our drink orders and in a few minutes returns with a tray loaded down with tall cool glasses full of sweet tea. She goes around the table handing everyone their drinks and gets to me last. She goes to hand me my drink and as I go to two-hand it she pulls it back and says “Oh! Would you like me to get you a smaller glass hun?”. I have no idea why older ladies like to call me “hun” when they are trying to take care of me, maybe it’s a motherly type thing? Any way, I am sitting there with a table full of people and the waitress looking at me waiting for an answer to this question that quite frankly surprised everyone at the table. Caught completely off guard, and the only things that runs through my mind is “Hey Kirk, I’m not a little kid you know, I can drink a full glass”. I just kind of laugh it off and tell her that unless she wants to refill it more often she better just leave the big boy glass.

 Stuff like that doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does I try my best to be nice and polite and not make any body feel bad. I know for the most part people make comments like out of genuine concern and I take that into account when I answer. There are also times when I feel like people aren’t being genuinely concerned and just say things out of pure ignorance, and I take that into account to. I know that was a really round-about way of telling you that I thought of a movie line when the lady asked if I wanted smaller glass, but that’s kind of the way my mind works.

Ok, I don’t really hate being an amputee. In fact, I have kind of gotten used to it over the last 34 years, and it doesn’t really bother me most of the time. There are times though when being an amputee kind of sucks though. At the risk of sounding like I am complaining (the people that know me, know that is just not something I do), I think these “why I hate being an amputee” post will be a good way to share some of the annoyances that come with being an amputee.

So what’s reason number 13 you ask? Well that would be phantom pains! I use that term loosely, because I am only speaking from my own experience and this is not something that I have ever seen a doctor about. I have heard about people having phantom pains or sensations with missing limbs. I have heard about people feeling like their missing limb is still present. I have never personally had that feeling, I think probably because my foot was amputated at such an early age. I never remember it being there, so it makes sense to me that my mind wouldn’t miss it. What I have experienced, for as long as I can remember, is a very intense itching sensation. When the doctors amputated my foot, they took what would have been my heel and made a “flap” that wraps around the bottom of my leg. This flap is a little thicker than the skin on the rest of my leg, and for whatever reason has very little to no feeling. There are parts of the bottom of my leg that can be touched, and I can not feel it at all. I have no feeling on the outside of my leg, the inside however is a totally different story. From time to time I get this itching sensation, right down at the very end of my leg, right where I have no feeling on the outside. This itching feeling is impossible to describe. It is like an itch, but not like an itch at all. I can’t feel it on the outside of my leg like you would normally feel an itch. I feel it on the inside of my leg, like from the inside out, if that makes any sense. I have had poison ivy a few times, and the itchy feeling is horrible. If you have ever had poison ivy, imagine the itchy feeling that you get at the point of the rash, now multiply that by say 20 or so and then imagine that instead of your skin itching imagine the itch is just under the skin. That would probably be pretty close to what I experience. I am not a doctor, so I can’t really say what is going on when this happens. I can only imagine that for some unknown reason the nerve endings associated with my foot that were cut with the amputation decide to just freak out on me at random times. Yay! Here’s the fun part though, and the part that will really mess with your head. When I get this itchy sensation (thankfully it doesn’t happen often) my mind automatically says “hey, if you scratch that it will stop”. So like any other itch that I get, my natural reaction is to scratch it to make it go away. Now for those of you paying attention, you will remember I have no feeling at the tip of my leg where this itchy sensation is occuring. I can scratch all day long, but it’s not going to make any difference. Its a really weird feeling knowing that your itching, and no matter how much scratching you do it’s just not going to help. Its really weird when I see myself touching my leg, but I cant feel it at all, and can still feel the itchy feeling inside. Most of the time, if I am able, I go ahead and take my prosthesis off and go through the motions just so it doesn’t drive me completely crazy. There are times when I can’t take my leg off and it starts doing it (like here while back, it started doing it while I was at work), that I just have to suck it up and ride it out. Those times are the worst.  Like I said, thankfully, it doesnt happen that often, and it has only really driven me completely crazy a couple of times (so for those of you wondering what happened to me, now you know).

Before I start today’s incoherent ramblings, I wanted to say thanks to those of you that have been faithfully reading the site and those of you that have commented and/or e-mailed me with kind words. I also appreciate any constructive criticism on the site, and how it functions. Thanks to some of you that have pointed out some problems with the site. There are still some CSS issues that I need to take care of. Mainly the earliest posts that feature black text on the black background….Doh! Thanks for pointing that out, I will try and get those issue fixed so you guys don’t have to highlight the text to read it.

If you find anything that doesn’t work on the site, or you just want to drop me a line and let me know that you are reading, I would really love to hear from you.

I have to be honest, being on the other side of this blog thing is still a little bit odd for me. It is definitely taking some getting used to, know that there are people I don’t know that are reading this site. I never really thought about the people that write the blogs that I follow on a daily basis. I just hop on their site and read away, and never really think about the person behind the writing. I do now of course, because this whole blog experience for me (even though it is still very new) has put a lot of things into perspective for me. When I started this whole thing I didn’t really think about people reading it. I know that sounds weird since that would be the whole point of doing something like this. I just never really thought it would amount to much. I shared the idea with some close friends and family, and knew they would be checking it out, but I never really put much thought into how many people outside my little circle would actually see what I was putting out there. Don’t get me wrong, that was the whole point, I want you to follow along on my little journey. I wanted to put myself out there for people to see, I just didn’t honestly think that many people would ever see this. I thought of it more as personal journal than a public on at times, and you can probably tell that from reading. Over the last couple of months I have realized that there are actually people that are following along, and reading my blog. That is both awesome, and a little scary all at the same time. I hope that some of you that are following along are getting something positive out of this, because that has been my goal all along. This may be one of those things in life that I never get to see the good that comes out of it, and I am ok with that. I feel like on some level this thing is actually starting to become what I wanted it to become, and that makes me happy. I realize that none of this is probably making any sense to any of you out there, but to me it makes perfect sense. And that in itself is just a little bit scary. So again, thank you. Thank you for taking time out of your day to share part of my life. Seriously, don’t be strangers, let me know if there is anything I can do to make this blog better.

Wow, I just really don’t even know what to say about this. I know it’s probably wrong on some level, but I couldn’t help but laugh when I read it.

So this might seem strange and really offensive to some but hopefully someone will reply. I have always loved the scene in Empire Strikes Back where Chewbacca has to carry around a half constructed C3PO in a backpack because he hasn’t reattached his lower body yet. For Halloween I would love to dress up like this. I am big enough and strong enough to both pull off the Chewbacca look and to carry around a lot of weight for the night. So basically I am looking for a double amputee (someone missing both legs – preferably at the hip) to accompany me as C3PO for the evening. We should meet ahead of time so we can work out the backpack/harness system. There are a few parties that I want to hit and I think we will be the hit of any event we attend. Anyone up for this?

One of my favorite shows when I was a kid was Different Strokes. I am not sure why I liked that show, or why I still like it, but I did. I think it was probably the catchy theme song, which strangely enough I have had stuck in my head lately. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing. I have been writing so much, and consequently thinking, about being different lately that it only seems natural for a song about being different to get stuck in my head. The truth is, the world doesn’t move to the beat of just one drum, what might be right for you may not be right for some. I hate to sound like a broken record sometimes, but the more I write the more I realize there are some themes that keep popping up in my writing. I think it may be because every where you turn people are trying to force there own ways on you. You watch TV for 10 minutes or read any magazine cover in the checkout line at your favorite store or listen to any radio commercial and there is always going to be a recurring theme. Society wants us to all fit into the same mold. I personally don’t buy into it. It starts when you are a child, and continues right on through adulthood. I can still remember having to have a certain pair of jeans (Guess stone washed to be exact) when I was in middle school just to fit in with all the other kids at school. You grow up and nothing really changes, the brands have changed but you still need to wear the same thing as everyone else to be cool. In the words of Garth Algar, I refuse to bow to any corporate sponsor.  I definitely march to the beat of a different drum, and I like it that way!