Single-handed Life

On April 5, I celebrated 6 years cancer free. Paise the Lord! Now, my checkup is booked once a year rather than every 6 months. 

It has also been 6 years of having no left arm. The first time I was referred to as an amputee was shortly after my surgery. A nurse said the word to me ... and it kind of just hung in the air as I pondered the potential of the label being part of who I now was. It did take time to adjust to this new label and certainly has made me look at normal life activities differently. 

I did not mourn the loss of my arm. I was so happy with the potential of continuing my life that mourning the loss did not even occur to me. My joy in being alive and my love of learning probably made adapting to my life as an amputee easier.  Six years later I still have phantom pain and yet I remain drug-free. I still handle the issue with mirror therapy for 10 minutes in both morning and night. Talking to other amputees is cool because they understand being an amputee because they too have lived it.

One of the first things that I had to learn to do was brush my teeth. After that, I began to figure out the intricacies of getting dressed and even doing up buttons. The next effort was figuring out basic things in the kitchen like peeling carrots. Driving was interesting. With the amputation, they took away my driver’s license, and I had to take a ‘course’ through the AMA before I could drive again and take a driving test. The impressed driving course instructor told me she would let me 'drive with her children'. I am not sure what she wrote in her report but when I got the letter from Alberta Transportation all I had to do was go into a registry office for an eye test – there was no need for a driving exam.  

Some people do take a second look at me and that is fine. Some do not even notice that I am wearing a prosthetic and that is also fine. It does not happen too often but there are those who try to decide for me what I can or cannot do based on how they perceive my physical limitations. I live outside the 'box' and decide what and how I do things. Thus I do not let the opinions of others define my abilities. This is weird that I find a need to say this but avoid telling anyone with a perceived disability what they can or cannot do.  I definitely have decided that I live outside the traditional box of limitations although I do happily accept and ask for help when needed. Being a single-handed individual does make things slower for me; however, it has also created an opportunity for me to demonstrate adaptability and flexibility rather than disability in my approach to my life as an amputee. 

Proverbs 23:7  For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.

Happy Spring!