Yeah....it falls off

I have had this prosthesis for about a year now, and since I have gotten it I have had problems with it falling off....now for my friends, this is quite normal, they are used to it. But the poor strangers I run into get freaked out when this happens. '

The first time this happened was about a year ago after school. My friend, Meagan, thought it would be a great idea to take my purse from me and run down the hallway with it. I chased her to the bathroom, where we ran into my other friend Elissa. Meagan and I were still running around, when I put my leg back to kick her, but instead of my leg coming into contact with her shin, I suddenly felt about 10 pounds lighter as I got caught off balance. I look down on the floor, and my leg is sitting there. At first I think "Daaang it. Oh well....my friends should be used to me by now."

Until I hear the gasps and feel the stares of about four Freshman girls. 

Of course I felt bad for these poor girls, since they were young and small and still getting used to high school, when all of a sudden some freaks leg falls off. 

"Umm....Excuse me? Do you need this?" one of the girls asked, holding up my leg

"Yeah. I would say so..." I replied as I took my leg and popped it back on.

Here's another story since I haven't posted in a while:

If y'all remember correctly, I am my high schools mascot. So since I have had this problem with my leg falling off, it has come into my mascotting. So for our homecoming pep rally, I thought it would be a great idea to ask one of our teachers to homecoming....it's sort of a tradition between the mascot and this teacher to have a thing. Anyway, so I kneeled down with a big sign that said "HOMECOMING?!" while the teacher came out into the middle of the gym. Now most of the high schoolers know me, so they know I am in fact an amputee. But since it was our homecoming pep rally, we had all of the elementary schoolers there as well. Because I want to protect the minds of elementary schoolers, I try my best not to do anything with my leg around them because I don't want to freak them out. But since I was kneeling, when I tried to pop back up to escort my date out of the gym, I feel a "pop" and my leg start to slip off. Immediately, I think "Oh dear. These poor elementary kids...oh no no no!" Luckily, I was able to get it popped back on long enough to fix my leg on the side while no one was looking.  

"Hah. No one noticed right?" 

Wrong. 

After the pep rally, many of my peers came up to me and asked me if my leg was having a malfunction during the pep rally....I still haven't lived that down. 

Luckily no elementary schoolers were traumatized....as far as I know. 

"Well then."

Because I am in fact an amputee, I sometimes use the elevator at school. I know that this is quite similar to the last story, but it's not exactly the same. Anyway it was morning and since my first class is upstairs, I decided to use the elevator. I pushed the button and a few seconds later the elevator comes down with a teacher who is new to the school this year. I got on the elevator as she got off, when all of a sudden she puts her hand on the door to stop the doors from closing.

"Excuse me." she says very rudely "This elevator is for employee use only. You  need to use the stairs." 

As you can probably tell, in the mornings I am very tired and sometimes short tempered. I was in no mood for this. I have also heard about this teacher all year, and not very many people like her that much.

I look at her and say "I have one leg." 

"Well then." she scoffs as she stalks away. 

........awk sauce. 

The Elevator

When I was in fifth grade, before I lost my leg, I was wheelchair bound. Every day when we would go to one of our "out classes" I would have to ride the elevator down with a buddy. Now this buddy was designated to be my buddy all day, meaning they would push my wheelchair around, ride the elevator with me, and just make sure I didn't hurt myself or anyone else. 

One day, one of the girls in my class whom I have known since first grade was my "buddy" for the day. She and I got along well, so as you can imagine I was excited to have her as my buddy! When I was in fifth grade, I was very hyper-active. I couldn't sit still, and I always had to be talking or moving. I also had a very good sense of humor, so I pretty much laughed at everything. But on this particular day, it got me into trouble.

Anyway, this girl and I were on our way to art class or music or something, so we had to take the elevator down. On this particular day I felt wild, so I decided for whatever reason it would be a good idea to recline my wheelchair seat all the way back. The elementary school elevator is very small, so it didn't exactly fit in very well. My buddy tried to push me in, but the doors started closing on us, so we pushed the "door open" button like any other person. This poor sweet girl who was designated to be my buddy for the day still couldn't get me in after about three more attempts. Meanwhile, I thought that this was the funniest thing that had ever happened to me, so I am sitting there laughing hysterically. Then the elevator alarm started going off, and we still couldn't fit my wheelchair in. We tried getting the seat back up, but it just didn't work, we were too weak. Then all of a sudden comes our fifth grade math teacher. This was at the beginning of the year, so we were all still terrified of her, and she started yelling at us. 

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR DOING?! WHY ARE YOU PLAYING IN THE ELEVATOR??" she screams

"Oh. We couldn't fit it in, and it won't go back up" my friend says 

"HERE. THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT." the teacher says as she yanks a lever to make the seat pop back up. "IF I EVER CATCH YOU TWO PLAYING IN HERE AGAIN, YOU WILL BE IN BIG TROUBLE." she stormed off.

Throughout this entire time, one would think I would be very sweet and respectful right? Well I was laughing this entire time, which only made her more upset. I got a check on my card *gasp* for being disrespectful and "laughing at a teacher" that week. 

My friend and I finally made it down to wherever we were supposed to be. She was furious. 

To this day she still claims that I ruined her fifth grade year, but none the less, we are still friends, even after this elevator disaster. 

"Oh Good. You're Handicapped."

A couple of months ago, I woke up on a Saturday morning. I stumbled out of bed (and yes, I mean literally stumbled since I'm missing a key component to not stumbling)  and put on my leg. When I went to go brush my teeth I noticed that my toothbrush of all things was missing. How it disappeared from the night before, I do not know, but anyways, I didn't have a toothbrush. 

I decided it would be completely disgusting to not brush my teeth, so I decided to make the 9:00am trip to Kroger to get a toothbrush, and some other random things. I got into my car and drove to the store, where I pulled into a handicapped space. I opened up my door and put my prosthesis out of my car before I realized I hadn't put up my tag yet. But before I could do so, I saw a lady march over to my car. 

"Excuse me." she said rather rudely "Do you know what the minimum fine is for parking in a handicapped spot?" 

I was in no mood for this, so I decided to let her humor me. "No I can't say I do. What is it?"

"It's 2,000 dollars. I was just on a jury case for this exact situation, but the man claimed he had put it up but it wasn't visible, and he had to pay the fine of 2,000 dollars. So since you are obviously fully capable, you need to go park somewhere else and leave this space open for someone who actually needs it." 

I was speechless. Seriously. How rude could this lady be? You're really gonna come up to a random stranger in the parking lot  and tell them off? And by the way, in the state of Texas, the minimum fine for parking in a handicap spot is $200. Anyway, I stayed calm and collected. I took my tag and clicked it up on my rearview mirror. A this point, the poor woman looked so confused. 

And to make things about 1,000 times better she goes "How did you get one of those?" 

I was wearing jeans on this day, and I had my prototype leg on, so I still had the pole and the clear socket going on. As I pulled up the leg on my jeans, her eyes got HUGE. Any normal person at this point would apologize right? 

Haha. I wish. 

Her response? "Oh good! You're handicapped!" 

"Yeah. Good." I say, as I get out of my car and go inside the store.

Thank y'all for reading this post! I hope you enjoy all the other things that happen in my crazy life!!

Emily 

First Post!

Hello to the cyber world. I decided to start this blog because some of you need to smile. As you saw from the title of this blog, I am in fact an amputee. Heres how it all went down:

When I was 9 months old I was diagnosed with Neurofibromatosis, or NF for short. Throughout my entire life, I had casts, braces, illizarovs (quite painful. It's a device that has rings, pins and screws going all the way through my leg.), more casts, rods....so by the time I was 10, my leg healed. But then it buggered up again a year later, and my leg broke once again. I can still remember my doctor telling me I had two choices. I could have yet another illizarov, which may or may not work, or I could amputate. So I decided to amputate my leg when I was 11 years old.

It was a tough decision to make. I mean, come on, I've had this attached to me for my entire life. But now that I do have this amputation, I have never looked back. I can now keep up with my classmates physically, I can sort of run (I hate running. I mean come on, why would you do something so stupid?), and I can walk pretty much without a limp. (I still have a slight one, but it's not that noticeable) I am the mascot for my school, which means I dress up in the giant eagle costume and run around at football games.

I wanted to let all of you know about my daily life. Almost every day, something odd happens to me, and it makes for hilarious stories and situations. So please, come back everyday and read about my daily life. It can get pretty crazy.