But that didn’t mean I was always perky. It didn’t mean I was going to go through every day like sunshine and butterflies and start proclaiming to everyone I felt like my amputation was a superpower or whatever the trendy new self-empowerment thing was to say.
The truth was this fucking sucked.
Not the most delicate or ladylike way to put it, but there was no other way to approach it. I wasn’t afraid to admit I had a hard time dealing with it. There were plenty of times when I was angry and upset. Anybody who had spent any time with me since then could tell you I had bouts of being less than a pleasant person. But I was the one who heard the most of my complaints. They went on in my head, rattling around when I gave myself even a second of silence.
Unless I was with Gerry. That was one of the wonderful things I discovered in my time in his arms. When I was with him, I didn’t think nearly as much about how much my life had changed or what it was like to go through every day trying to navigate my new normal. I just got to enjoy. I got to think about him. I got to experience more pleasure and happiness than I had in as long as I could remember.
And I could absolutely get used to that.
But I couldn’t just bury us away in the bedroom and ignore the rest of the world. I had to let him go back to his life. He had his cat to feed and work to do. His promise to come back after work made it a little easier to let him go after breakfast.
I’d noticed the way my sister was looking at us throughout breakfast. She didn’t say anything. I doubted she was going to. There really wasn’t much she could say. I was an adult. If I wanted to spend the night with a man, I could. But I could understand the raised eyebrow at my choice of man. It was definitely skirting close to her group, and to be honest, Gerry probably wasn’t the type of man she ever thought I would end up with. For several reasons.
I didn’t care. My feelings for Gerry were growing, and I had decided I wasn’t going to let what other people thought get to me. Especially when I was still in such a happy, hazy place from waking up warm and comfortable in his arms. His sweet goodbye kisses as he walked out of the house only made it better.
But that all went to hell pretty quickly when my phone rang. He hadn’t been gone five minutes when I heard my phone and saw the number of my doctor’s office on the screen. Plopping down on the edge of the bed, I answered. The conversation was brief, and when it was over, I just sat there staring into the distance.
Dee came to the door a while later—I had no idea how long—and gave me a strange look. She obviously meant to say something when she got there, but it all went out of her mind when she saw me.
“That was the doctor,” I said. “They’re ready to check on my leg and see if I’m ready for my prosthesis.”
Her eyes lit up. “That’s fantastic!” She hesitated. “Isn’t it? Aren’t you happy?”
I thought about that question for a minute. I really should have been. After all, getting my prosthetic leg and being able to really walk around again without having to use crutches or a wheelchair was something I was aiming for from the very first second I realized my leg was gone. There was never a second where it was an option for me to just accept what happened and that a bandaged leg and crutches were my reality.
I might not ever be able to change that I had to get my leg amputated because of the incredible negligence and stupidity of another person. I might not ever be able to change that the recklessness of one man completely changed the trajectory of my life. What I could change was the way I handled it, and that meant immediately getting on the course toward having a prosthetic leg.
But, like many people, I was woefully unaware of what that process actually entailed. Somehow in my mind, I was convinced it should be fairly simple. They should be able to just hand it to me as soon as I left the hospital after the surgery and I’d get used to it. Maybe I’d need some physical therapy, but I’d be able to move forward with my life quickly.
That was not the case. Long conversations with the doctor and the team of specialists who were handling my care brought me back down to Earth. I was going to have to wait until my residual leg healed completely. Then I was going to need to make sure it was prepared for the rigors of wearing the device. Then I was going to need to have it fitted and go through therapy to learn to use it properly.