I was talking to someone at work the other day and the subject of my prosthetic leg came up. This person was not aware that I had a prosthetic leg even though they have known me for a couple of years. I mentioned that a lot of people that I deal with everyday don’t know I have a prosthetic leg unless I wear shorts around them, or unless I tell them. Of course those aren’t the only ways a person could find out about my leg. I would say there are hundreds of ways that people have found out about it, most of which involve it falling off at the most inappropriate times. I have mentioned before a few of the stories I have about my leg becoming detached and thought this might be a good time to tell you a little more about some of those stories.

When I was in school and more physically active than I am now I wore a neoprene sleeve to help keep my leg on. I learned early on that when kicking a ball (or any other object for that matter) that maybe I needed a little something extra to keep me all in one piece so to speak. I remember a couple of kick ball games in middle school that did not turn out so well. For the most part I can keep my leg on, but there are times when it just gets away from me. When I knew I would need it, like for high school football games, I would wear the sleeve. As a general rule though I didn’t wear it unless I knew I would need it.

Had I known my cousin and his friends were going to be riding a bucking barrel in the backyard when I went over there I obviously would have packed the sleeve. I don’t really think I need to tell you how that turned out. Fifteen years later, that story still gets told every time I am around those guys, and its still funny.

Being short and having a prosthetic leg is like a double whammy. When I used to work for a bank I hated the chairs that the tellers sat in because they were taller than a regular office chair and my feet didn’t reach the floor. Had I know that I would be sitting in one of those high chairs doing a server update with my boss and another coworker, I would have packed the sleeve. You can only fight gravity for so long, it always wins in the end. I think the funniest part of my leg falling off that time was that neither of them noticed even though they were sitting right next to me. Neither of them found out until later on when someone else mentioned it.

One time I was glad I wasn’t wearing the sleeve was on a trip to Sea World in San Antonio when I was a teenager. The sleeve did a really good job of holding my leg on, but it was a pain to put on and take off. I put it on the the top of my prosthetic and then rolled it down, put my prosthetic on and then rolled the sleeve up over my knee. It was a process because of how the top of my leg is made so it wasn’t easy to just take the leg off when I was wearing it. Me and my cousin climbed like 50 set of stairs to get to the top of the big water slide at Sea World only to be greeted by a big sign that says “no prosthetic limbs allowed”. This is the part where I would normally throw a big old fit and tell the people at the top of the stairs what the could do with their sign. However, there are times when it is easier (and funnier) to just go along. So standing at the top of the water slide with my cousin and my grandpa and the teenagers working the ride and the long line of kids waiting on us, I pop my leg off hand it my pop and tell him he better beat me to the bottom. For anyone curious enough, he did not beat me to the bottom! On that same trip we found out how fast you could make small children get out of a swimming pool. The great thing about my leg is that it floats. This has been a good thing on a couple of occasions. Me and my cousin were in the pool with a bunch of other kids and for some reason we told them I had a fake leg. None of them believed us until I took it off under the water and just let it float to the surface (which it does not do slowly by the way). By the time the kids stopped screaming and the adults started to come around asking what was going on, I already had the leg back on and was acting like nothing had happened. Good times!

 I mentioned this story before, but promised I would tell the whole story later. So here you go. Gravity does tend to give me fits at times, so there are times when its just convenient to let the leg do what it wants to do. I was at a friends house one time working on my truck. I don’t even remember what was wrong with it at the time, but I had crawled under it to look at something. I was wearing shorts and my leg kept sliding off while I was moving around under there so I just kicked it off and went on with what I was doing. I got done, and still under the truck I start feeling around trying to find my leg so I can slide it back on and stand up when I get out from under the truck. One of the worst feelings in the world is reaching around for your leg and it not being where you left it. Trust me on that one. So I slide out from under the truck and sit up, look around and there is no leg to be found. That’s when I look over and see the neighbors dog, who obviously lacked someone to play with standing there wagging his tail looking at me with my prosthetic leg laying right at his feet. Two things immediately run through your mind in this situation. The first is, wow my leg is really far away from me. The second is, that mutt is going to take off with my leg as soon as I move. I was correct on both counts. In most of the cases where my leg has been separated from my person the worst part is trying to figure out how to get said leg back. In some cases people think its funny to not give the leg back (all of those people know exactly how unfunny I think that is now), in some cases there is no one else around and you just hop to it. Then there are the times when a dog just wants to play. My dad raised dogs when I was little and I learned that you can say anything you want to a dog as long as you say it in a friendly tone the dog will resond. If you want a dog to come to you, you better be nice about it, because the wrong tone of voice will not get your leg back. I dont remember exacty what I was saying to the dog (I am sure it wasnt anything good though), but I can tell you this, thats the sweetest I have ever talked to anyone or anything. Even though there was no one around, I am sure there were people on that street that day watching through their windows laughing their heads off.

The more I write about stuff like this, the more I remember things like this that happened. These are just a few of the times I can think of off the top of my head, and some of my favorites. I will be adding more stories like these as I remember/have time.