Athletes & Prosthetics

[Richard L Kaderli]

George,
Everyone is different, and not just mildly so.  I have no phantom pain I
keep writing.  I'm a BK while you are an AK, and you do know that there
is a big difference because you have both lived it and studied it.  As a
fairly recent BK I do not stay the same size.  I shrink and swell five or
six times a day.  Most of my current pain is just that old python
squeezing off my stump. Or it is the pustuals smarting from rubbing
because I have walked an hour or so and shrunk down and have been in
front of a classroom of teenagers who don't know I'm an amp and I can't
drop my pants and add sock.  I really wish I wore a skirt. As to the pain
I'm mentioning for the benefit of those who aren't amps, I refer to the
actual agony of the first year when it felt like my stump was a torture
device.  I was always wondering if it would ever subside(without massive
doses of Vicodin) the first 5 months.  Here I refer to the pain of
surgery.  You know: screws in the bone to attach the muscle and tendon,
muscle atrophy, general but real sorts of physical pain.  Then there is
the pain of really bad prosthetists building me legs that I could barely
walk in; legs that walked like peg legs and fit like beartraps around the
knee. Thanks to NovaCare I spent three years dealing with this sort of
pain.  Again not phantom.  Phantom is an itch I get in my ankle that
isn't there, and I remind myself, scratch my knee and it goes away.
Periodically I'm in the pain-free camp.  It happens this past two and a
half years that I'm walking or sitting and forget that I'm an amp. 
Flexfoot with the right socket on the right day is a pretty good leg. If
I shrink down and put on the Comfort Plus (Super thick) Iceross liner I
can work a couple hours doing heavy stuff on my leg.  I try to keep in
mind how hard it would be to get another leg without insurance and so I
don't do anything too rough, just chop wood and haul stuff. I'm a wussy
compared to that Marine.  But hey, I don't want to get started on the
'military' mind. 
Richard Kaderli
BK

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