Working with one leg and half a brain

For those of you who don't know me by my previous articles in The Salisbury Post, I am a fairly recent left below the knee amputee. This happened to me when doctors performed an ankle fusion and I ended up fighting MRSA and Pseudomonas for eight months during the year of 2007. Throughout 2007 I tried saving my leg through five surgeries and wearing an external fixator for almost eight months. The fixator did not do the job and I was left with the terrible decision to have my leg amputated in order to get on with my life. After the amputation in March of 2008, which was my sixth surgery, I endured a total of eleven surgeries to get where I am today.

In my attempt to shroud my feelings of anger and defeat, I have tried to see the comical side of living with one leg. Since I am in my late fifties and I suffer like many of us with so-called "senior moments" I thought I would try and bring a chuckle to your day with the following story.

Recently, I had enjoyed a nice luncheon with my friend Linda and afterwards, I drove into my neighbors' driveway, left my purse in the car, and walked in to talk with Frank and Katie. They are a dear couple which my husband Don and I have a great time going out to dinner with, talking politics and trying to solve the problems of the world. This particular afternoon, it was already 4:00 p.m. and I planned on talking to them for just a few moments. However, we started into a discussion that I just could not leave. Since I have been having much trouble wearing my prosthetic leg, I took it off while I was talking. Before I knew it, two hours had gone by, it was dark and I had to drive home to feed my two Shih Tzus, Snickers and Chance.

I grabbed my prosthetic leg from where I was sitting and attempted to tug and push on the leg, with no success. This had never happened to me before in the two years that I have been an amputee. At first, Frank and Katie were quite concerned as I was really getting frustrated, blasting out expletives, because I could not put on my leg!

Finally, I sat down on the couch, picked up my leg and looked inside. My keys were in the pocket of the stump! Without thinking while I was talking, I had casually flipped my keys into the top of the prosthetic. When I saw what I had done and sheepishly pulled out my keys, Frank, Katie and I started laughing hysterically! There are many days with these "senior moments" that I feel I lost half my brain along with my leg! Now, if that was not a "senior moment," I don't know what was!

Jennifer Doering lives in Salisbury.