What's in a name?

[RENARDWC at ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu]

One fine day George Boyer, AMP-L's resident etymologist, suggested:

GB>...Look, re the stump matter, that term was definitely a medical
   coinage, taken up by people central in the prosthetic business in the
   early 70s.

This would be in keeping with my experience. When I awoke from surgery
as a new amputee November 1969 the surgeon who did the job on me
referred to my stump as a 'stump', both in conversation with me and with
other medical professionals (nursing staff, PTs, x-ray, et.al). If he
was aware of another cutesy term, neither he nor the nursing staff used
it. I heard no other locution used. Hence, I have used it since.

Agreed...it is not a particularly elegant term.

It has also been my experience that newer amputees do not use the term
with quite the facility us old hands do, and I understand that
completely. Stump often does not cross their lips with comfort.

Residual limb can also be confused with an unamputated limb since if I
understand the term residual, it means remaining, and while I have a
stump on my right side, I have an entire (remaining, or one that remains
whole) limb on my left haha. So, it my left leg residual since it
remains intact? I once used it this way and Bill Baughn was there to
remind me I had it wrong.

Do I care what you use? Naw. But, I believe there is some credence to
the notion that the words we use express and reflect our thinking, and
if someone wishes to alter or adjust a mode of thinking, to tweak the
parameters a wee bit, then the words we chose to describe ourselves do
indeed matter.


Wayne Renardson