God made us with "Spare Parts".......

That's some information to digest huh! It took a little while before I could speak, but luckily, my sister (who is also a nurse) and my girlfriend were with me asking questions for me.

I wasn't QUITE prepared for what was presented as a surgical option, but questions soon started to flow:

Me: Have you done this surgery before?

Dr: No, to our knowledge, this has never been done before anywhere in the world that we are aware of.

Me: GREAT! (inside thought) What risks am I facing?

Dr: Well, you could get drop foot, (He explained) that is, where we could, by accident damage nerves in the surgery, so when you walk, you wouldn't be able to lift or control your foot properly, as you move your leg to take a step, your foot would drag through as you go to bring your foot in front of you. If there is any nerve damage, you may loose feeling in parts of either or of both of your legs. The bone graft may not take, or you could get an infection, in which case we would have to remove the graft resulting possibly in amputation.

Me: Have you used this bone in other kinds of surgeries?

Dr: Oh yes, god made us with spare parts, and the fibula is just one of them, we remove them often for jaw reconstruction surgeries. As long as everything with the surgery goes well, and we have no reason to think it won't, you will walk again, it's just going to be different than what you're used to. It's going to take time and patience to allow things to settle, heal and recover. You're never going to be able to run or jump again, so cross off your ideas of running a marathon from your bucket list. But you will be ok.

Like really? (Now I do not mean to offend ANYONE) but I'm thinking I'm going to walk like a retard, if at all. I know this sounds shallow, I am alive right? But none of what the Dr was saying was making me feel any better? Wholy FUCKBALLS, , I'm going to be covered in scares and I'm gonna have two fucked legs and I'm never going to be able to walk like I used to ever again, let alone dance or run and play with my children. The tears just kept rolling down my face.

We talked about the surgery and how long it was going to take, 8 -10 hours, and would be done in stages by both Swee Tan and Dr Devane. We were looking at about a 2-4 month wait for the surgery, that meant that it would be October before the surgery. I'm not going to be walking for a year! The mountain just took on a whole new level of steep. This is just getting better and better. NOT!

I went home and as you could imagine, my head was a mess, but instantly got onto google and started researching fibula removal surgeries, I was amazed how how much information there was, I also got a fast forward look at what the scaring was going to look like. CHOICE!

I also went on a bit of a "people like me" crusade, you know when you buy a new car, you never really noticed that model before, but now you have one, all of a sudden you see them EVERYWHERE, or when you break up all you see is couples EVERYWHERE. Well I was seeing people with prosthetic legs everywhere, AND I would stop them and ask them if they would mind telling me what had happened. One young man I talked to was only 24, I can't remember exactly what had happened now, but he MADE the choice to amputate, he didn't want a gammy leg to drag around, so he told the Dr to take it off. Man, THAT is brave!

There was also a song out at the time by Rudimental called "Waiting all Night", the video is of a bunch a guys riding BMX bikes around the streets of San Fransisco, one of them gets taken out, the whole video is of this guy being in hospital, loosing his leg, getting a prosthetic leg, learning to walk on it, his good days and bad days and his buddies being right by his side getting him through (with a bit of mischief too :)

- watch it, its a great video and great song. The guy in the video is Kurt Yaeger, he is a BMX champion and an actor from San Francisco. Well what did Rach do, I tracked him down and messaged him, and yes, he did message me back and gave me a lot of advice and encouragement.

Looking forepeople and or things to relate to, to try and make some kind of sense of where I was at, I found a documentary called "Why We Ride", WELL like I needed any more reason to love motorcycles, what a great documentary, but what got me, was there was one man in particular who was interviewed, his name David Barr, he has circumnavigated the globe riding a motorcycle, with his granddaughter on the back - but get this, he is a double leg amputee - YEP and he still rides!! He has had his bike custom built so all the controls are on the handle bars. HOW COOL IS THAT! - And yes! I called David Barr and chatted a few afternoons away with him too.

My moments of looking at a handful of pills and how easy it would be to just slip away, which wasn't really all that often, but non the less, had been crossing my mind - vanished!

It's game on, I got this, and I'm gonna be just fine! however that looks.

Now let's just get on with this Rach, how's about a little washing...........