5 reasons i would not remove my foot

Good Morning,

Interesting! Interesting!!! is all I have to say this morning...

Have I ever told you the story of my left foot? It's slightly less entertaining than the award winning drama "My Left Foot" (starring the Oscar winning performance of Daniel Day-Lewis...) okay, it's alot less entertaining. the central theme to my story goes--my foot hurts!

Following my injury, as soon as i regained the ability to walk a significant distance...I developed a very sharp stabbing pain in the ball of my left foot. Over the years, the pain has spread across the pad from big toe to pinky toe and crept the full length of the arch into my heel...

I have watched the movie "My Left Foot" and experienced inexplicable joy/relief as the young boy took to the wheelbarrow as a mode of assisted transportation...

It has been 19 yrs. and I cannot remember a day where my foot did not hurt.

Still in reflection, i consider it a moment of grace and clarity that i have never seriously considered the actions of Tom White. Tom White is a 55 year old dedicated runner who lives in rural Colorado.

(an excerpt taken from Runner's World Feb. 2009)

"For Tom White it was a different story. The choice he faced wasn’t life or death. It was life or better. With his natural leg,
he faced a future without running or hiking—the pursuits that animated his physical self. He felt fully alive, he was who he was, when his heart was pumping and his lungs were bellowing. Now he was considering cutting off a part of himself to retain that core identity. For Tom amputation didn’t look like a loss. It looked like a life regained--if everything went well..."

So...

Going after the feeling of once again being whole, Tom White decided, “You know I think it’s time to amputate my left foot!” That is, he requested surgery, a voluntary amputation, to remove his pained appendage.

In passing, I've made this same request. My loved ones have always responded with a concerned looked, a raised eyebrow, offers of help in seeking medical assistance...

Tom's wife's response was uh, a bit unexpected:

"Her reaction surprised him. 'Cool!' she said. She missed him as a running partner. But more than that, Tammy wanted to grow old with Tom—with him." (Runner's World)

Sooo...with his wife's blessing, Tom had the surgery. As the typical disability story goes, at first he struggled with the phantom pain, the prostheses, the multiple fittings, the missteps of his decision but in the end he triumphed over adversity!

This morning, on the day we set aside to celebrate the life and accomplishments of another great man. I stomp my foot in protest! I'm frustrated. shouldn’t Tom White be equally satisfied cultivating the inner life as well? Finding blessings in what he has…two kids, a wife, his health?

All this has lead me to one thing. simply to share the Top 5 Reasons why I would not have my foot removed:

1. elective surgery. no insurance company i have any knowledge of would ever cover this...i imagine asking the voice on the other line "uh, BKA (below the knee) amputation?"

2. Similarly, the Cheetah Flex-Foot estimated cost $22,500. After amputation, the key to regaining one's sporty or athletic lifestyle is acquiring a high performance prosthesis. i most definitely would want one of these:
http://www.ossur.com/?PageID=13462

so that i could then pose nude on the cover of ESPN the magazine:
http://www.shoppingblog.com/blog/10060917

i'm kidding! i'm kidding!

3. what would become of the amputated foot? not too long ago, the freezer in my apartment was dubbed the "baked good grave yard." i cannot part with anything someone has given to me (if i can't finish the entire cake etc. i put it in the freezer). throwing away my foot in the bio-hazard trashcan...the foot my parents gave me...just seems beyond my perhaps overly sentimental sensibilities. I suppose we could cremate it and stick it in an urn? labeled...do not empty until full?

4. i am at times soberingly realistic and practical. much like Tom White i would learn that a prosthetic foot requires a whole new gait. there's the very real possibility of unwanted falls and putting myself totally in a wheelchair before it's time.

5. i still have high hopes for this foot. i have a dream that one day my five little piggies will live on a foot where they will not be judged by the pain in their cores but on the content of their character...

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join feet [sic hands] and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

okay, Happy Monday. Happy MLK Day!

Amanda