It’s here! Blogger Patricia is getting her first prosthetic leg

After a long four-month wait, Patricia is getting ready to try on her first prosthetic leg. It’s a whirlwind of emotions, ranging from happiness to greed. And then, of course, it’s time for that long-awaited first step!

Blogger Patricia (54) fell down a kitchen step ladder and shattered her knee. After much deliberation, she opted to get an amputation in 2019. Her left leg was amputated through the knee joint, and she is now hard at work to return to her old life. Patricia is married and the mother of two adult daughters. She is an educator and an active member of a theatre troupe. She uses her blogs to put her new life into perspective.

My first prosthetic leg
From never expecting to need one to pining for one. From dreaming about one to finally wearing one: my close friend is finally here! It’s taken four-and-a-half months, but my artificial leg has finally arrived. How happy can you get? Well, incredibly happy, apparently. I’m overjoyed to be taking another step in the right direction. “So, how does it feel?”, I hear the people around me ask. For starters, it’s very difficult to explain, but I’m going to try.

Joy
The first thing I felt was joy at finally having a leg of my own. Over the past few months, I saw several of my fellow rehabbers get their new artificial leg, and as I happy I was for them, I was also jealous and couldn’t wait to get my own. Now I could feel the same jealous looks from the people in my group who still had to wait a little longer, and I’m afraid that my beaming smile probably didn’t make it any easier for them. Despite all that, everyone was lovely and they were all chuffed to bits for me.

Greed
Next, a sense of greed came over me. I never wanted to give my leg up ever again. Since it had to be adjusted, I had to hand it back to the O&P professional, who got it back to me the very next day.  (Just to be clear, I promise you I’m entirely sane!)

Acceptance
Accepting my artificial limb has been the easiest thing in the world for me. This artificial limb, this leg, will be like a close friend to me, who will empower me to do everything I want to do and everything that gives me joy. There may be times that I curse his existence because he’s hurting me, but I can’t and won’t live without him, so we’ll just have to find a way to make it work.

Structure of my prosthetic leg
The advantage of my amputation (knee disarticulation) is that you can basically lean on the end of the residual limb. Unfortunately, that didn't quite work out for me. There is a lot of soft tissue at the end of my residual limb and when I lean on it, it seems to explode. In response, "the brains" - my rehab doctor, physical therapist and prosthetist - came up with the following: by evenly distributing the pressure over my entire upper leg a vacuum in the socket, less pressure is put on the end of my residual limb.

I wear a liner over my residual limb, a thick, silicone stocking that protects the skin and keeps my limb in shape. Next, I don a rubber strip to seal the vacuum in the socket, followed by the socket itself, a hard plastic guard, which contains the vacuum system. Finally, I slide my residual limb - with the liner - into the socket, which is fitted with a valve. As all the air in the socket is squeezed out of the valve, the resulting vacuum creates a perfect, air-tight fit. Are you still with me?

Finally back on my feet
Third: the feeling of standing on my artificial leg. I had a so-called knee disarticulation, which means my upper leg remained intact because the amputation was made through my knee joint. My prosthetic leg is attached to the socket around my upper leg. For me, it consists of a knee (the Ottobock 3R106, a pneumatic knee joint) an extender and the foot. Right, so you’ve put on your socket, your leg is attached to it, and finally you get up. Getting back on both feet after four-and-a-half months.... priceless!

Walking on stilts
I walked a bit between the parallel bars and with a stroller. It’s odd: you can see your leg, you can take a step, but you don’t feel it. You don’t feel your foot strike as you usually would. You could compare it to walking on stilts, if your knee were to bend whenever you didn’t put any pressure on it.

You have to actively think with every step you take, because if you don’t, you’ll find yourself leaning on the bars for support in no time. That leg, after all, won’t just move by itself. If you don’t move it, it’ll just stay put. As beads of sweat drip down your forehead and your armpits, you get back up and take a step forward, while your PT tells you: “Wow, I never knew you were this tall.”

Lifelong friendship
I have a long way to go but I look forward to our friendship. A lifelong friendship in which we’ll both have to accept each others strengths and weaknesses.