Being an amputee definitely has its good and bad points. One of the annoying things about my leg is that since it comes up to my knee there is a lip at the top of my prosthetic that sometimes gets caught on things or pinches my leg if I bump it on something. The other night I got too close to the knob on the bedroom dresser and the knob hung on the lip of my leg and I got stuck. I didn’t know I was stuck until I tried to take a step and that leg wouldn’t budge. I can’t count the times I have bumped into something and pinched my leg to the point that it bled. I have to watch it sometimes after I have driven for a while. When I go to step out of my truck my leg wants to stay in the truck. I have only fell out of my truck completely a couple of times, usually I catch myself before I hit the ground. These are all parts of being an amputee that can suck at times, but you get used to those little annoyances after a while.

Being an amputee does has some advantages though, and I have been enjoying one of them for the last couple of months. I have spent a lot of time hunting this year, and it has been cold. Nothing sucks worse than sitting out on the woods and your feet getting cold. I only have to worry about the one foot, so that is a plus. When I am sitting out there in the woods in the morning and it’s 11 degrees I will be thankful I only have to worry about one foot getting cold. Of course if my leg falls off when I am sitting in my tree stand, like it almost did a couple of weeks ago, I may be singing a different tune.

Did I forget to mention that my leg almost fell off while I was in my tree stand a couple of weeks ago? I am always really careful when I am climbing ladders, and I was getting ready to get down out of my stand and wasn’t paying attention and my leg started to slip off as I was about to climb down. I was paying enough attention to catch it before it came completely off, but it did get me thinking about how I would climb down out of that tree and down the ladder on one foot. Maybe I should practice getting in and out of it on one foot, just in case? Yeah, probably not. I think that’s one of those bridges I will wait to cross. I can tell you that it is a weird feeling when you are twenty feet up a tree and you think your leg is about to fall off. It’s that same feeling you get when you lean over the side of a boat and your sun glasses slide of the top of your head, only a lot worse. Knock on wood, I have managed to keep it on all season, of course now that I have said something about it I am sure that will change. Because that is usually the way it goes for me.