I am struggling to gather my thoughts on this. Today we live in a time, where apparently you may chose to identify as whatever you want, be who ever you want to be at that moment in time. When it suits you to be one gender versus another gender it becomes a fact because you say you are so. I find it shocking that society today allows an individual to say, “I identify as” and then impose that will on society, all the while condemning those who disagree. A Cisgender, seems to be one of the few acts of normalcy we have in society.

• CisGender
  • adjective – denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex.

I think this new society will be fraught with future dilemma. You state it… therefore it is a fact that we must all accept. Spreading this ridiculous notion leads to chaos and ambiguity. Today I choose to drive East on the West bound lanes of traffic, ridiculous example I know, or is it. Today’s gender confusion is just the veritable tip of the iceberg. To what end do we as a society pretend to believe that an individuals gender is anything but what it is. A doctor assigning gender at birth seems to be a problem because the individual identifies as something else. Is the doctor no longer qualified to determine gender with years of biology wasted. Why would you want the care a doctor provides when they are not qualified to determine the sex of a child. Clearly, they lack sensibility.

If an individual chooses to be something other than what they are, that is a decision the individual is welcome to be. The problem arises when others choose not to agree with that. Suddenly, my opinion is invalid because I see your gender differently. How is it that we must be in agreement or we are wrong? How is it that my opinion no longer matters if it differs from yours?

I would be very much in favor of genderless public restrooms and adult locker rooms at the gym. I would NOT be in favor of gender confused children demanding they be allowed into the girls bathroom at school simply because they say that today I am a girl. Case in point… a Loudon County, Virginia teenager wearing a skirt using the girls restroom commits rape. Isolated case… or just the first in many more to come. School is difficult enough without adding forced gender identity especially if it’s your child being raped.

It’s simple people… If you have an outie your a male and if you have an innie your female. That’s how I see it and I think I am entitled to that opinion, at least for now.

Today is my one week anniversary with the new leg. I went to see the prosthetist this morning for some much needed adjustments.

Yesterday I had met with my Spasticity doctor. She was doing a prosthesis progress report. She was able to evaluate & translate my problems to the Prosthetist properly so that I could get the fixes I needed. Both her & I were perplexed as to exactly how in the hell he was going to fix my issues on an unmodifiable carbon-fiber socket and since the socket seemed to be built like an hours glass with the top being smaller than the bottom. I could barely get my leg into the smaller top part of the socket. Once my stump was thru the top, it dangled in a cavern-like lower part of the socket, touching the walls of the socket long enough to cause a nasty blister.

Among other things, my stump had shrunk in length by about a 1/2”.  It was no longer hitting the vacuum pump properly in the bottom of the socket – I’ll explain that part another day.  The stump was too big around to put even one-one-ply sock (for volume control) on the end or even the just the tip-of-the-stump & still get past the top of the socket.  I had a problem that was described as “bell clapping” where my stump was not making full contact with the walls of the larger bottom portion of the socket.  It must make full contact to work properly. This caused my leg/knee to sink too far down into the socket squeezing the hell out of my knee and shin bone. Because I was sinking down so far, it was making my knee all but impossible to bend as the socket was digging into the back of my knee.  I was completely sore, swollen, now nursing a blister, to top it all off – I couldn’t use the stump socks for padding or volume control.

Seems my Prosthetist knew what he was doing. He was able to work some magic today & put some inner padding behind the soft inner-socket as well as some other adjustments that made it fit “near” perfect.  I say near, as it seems that things are continually changing. But at least now I can use stump-socks to help with volume control going forward.

These new changes have been good. My stump has already started shrinking in volume as it’s supposed to.  Fluid is being naturally pumped out. Because of that, I can now use the stump socks for cushioning & volume control. I’m still a little sore, but I can walk with a cane really well. My leg isn’t sinking too far into the socket. And the vacuum pump I was talking of earlier that keeps my leg attached is working properly now.

This is day 4 with my new prosthetic leg. Being totally honest, I liked my meat-leg with a CROW boot better at this point in the game, rather than this. But – it’s very early in the game. We have to wait & see.

This prosthetic is tight. It’s uncomfortable. The way it fits changes from morning to evening, day to day. Hell, it changes while I’m wearing it every 15 minute or so. Sometimes I have blisters, sloppiness in the downside (calf) portion, and I can’t solve it by putting a prosthetic sock on (that I ended up cutting the top half off) to remove the sloppiness because I can’t get my stump into the socket with the extra thickness.

I’m very unsure of myself on my feet. But I know that it’s early. Research tells me it will take 2-4 weeks before I’ll be steady on it without the aid of a cane, walker, or crutches. It will take up to a year to be all-around comfortable with it. Right now, I keep reminding myself I’m only 4 days in.

Someday soon, I would like to be able to go on short hikes, trout fishing, or ride my motorcycle – maybe by the middle to the end of summer. Playing 9 holes of golf would be outstanding! But I’m re-aligning my expectations based on the past 4 days.  I’ll settle for taking a ride down to the river in my Polaris Side-X-Side & enjoying the scenery at this point. While I’m prepping for solo trips to the river, I’ll make my wife Michele go with my while she endures the spiders that hitch a ride along the way.

All that said, I’m optimistic. Long term I think this is going to work out. I really do believe that it will be 6 months to a year before I’m comfortable with the day-to-day use of this new way of life. There are more things than you know that making the decision to have your leg hacked off affects.

I’ve kept this site around for years. Yet I haven’t posted anything in ages. Maybe, it’s time I start back up.