Dear Colleagues

I woke up one morning taking a moment to stretch, like I usually do, and give gratitude for the life I breathe and to plan my next moves to get ready for the day. But, as I went to stand up, I stumbled. I looked down and had to compute that something about me was different.

As anxiety filled me, I found myself reliving that moment a few years ago when my leg was amputated quite suddenly. This was just another morning that I have forgotten about that.

On an August morning in 2019 I woke up and within an hour I was headed into surgery to have my leg amputated due to a blood clot. No time to process. No time to grieve. No time to understand that my life would drastically change that day.

Leaving the hospital after recovery and rehab, I was excited to persevere through healing, and the idea of a prosthetic knee was exciting. Watching videos of amputees hiking, riding motorcycles, travelling and swimming inspired me to want to do the same. They look effortless.

I had so many dreams, so many adventures that I wanted to experience… travelling to far-off lands, swimming in the ocean, feeling the wind in my hair as I road-tripped to new destinations, and so much more. I was going to do this and nothing was going to stop me. Here comes Bionic Wonder Woman!

There were significant delays in starting physiotherapy to learn how to walk again. As we tried different knees, I felt like I was never quite getting to the place of feeling safe to walk, and all of the new information that I was trying to process became quite overwhelming.

I stopped wearing my leg unless I had to go out. I would have great physio sessions, but the second I got home I wanted to tear off my leg and hide under the covers. I wanted to eat everything and sit in the dark. I felt paralyzed.

Thoughts crowded my mind. I wasn’t moving forward fast enough; I wasn’t going to live up to people’s expectations. They didn’t understand how hard this was. They were going to see me differently. The world around me already did. I couldn’t do the things I had done before. What if I couldn’t do it? What if I failed? What if I hurt myself? I could not embrace the unknown. It was daunting and all I could feel was fear.