At Least I Have Hands: a thread for therapy and amputee jokes

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I got out of bed and made it a lil ways w a walker today. Gravity hurts, but I moved.

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Progress is progress, even if it’s only a little bit at a time.

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I’m currently stuck on a 12 hour trans pacific flight. I’m thinking if I could take off one leg and stick it in the overhead bin I would be a lot happier. You lucky ■■■■■■■. I could fit more useful ■■■■ under the seat in front of me. Like food to take the place of the cheese and mayonnaise sandwich they gave us as a “meal.”

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Things are improving. Still in the hospital. This one is healing much better than the last. The biggest trouble is the phantoms. I can’t wait to start mirror therapy. My brain doesn’t wanna listen when it there’s no foot to act as a lightning rod.

Probs transfer to PT on Monday. Can’t wait. I’m so sick of these damned inflating beds trying to tip me out.

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Something you might want to try when you get a chance, there is an Oculus/Gear VR app called Perfect Beach. It’s not much, just a sitting at the beach relaxing type experience, your avatar can’t move, but you can look around and enjoy the scenery
anyway, point is your avatar in the app is shown from the neck down, and my guess is that could likely help along with the mirror therapy. Maybe not, who knows, but I thought it might be worth checking out.

I’ve tried it myself a couple of times, and I gotta admit, even if it doesn’t help with your phantom sensations, it is pretty relaxing. I’ve fallen asleep a couple of times when using it.

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That actually sounds pretty neat. I love stuff that helps me sleep.

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I would be very interested to know how the mirror therapy works out for your phantom pain. I remember watching a YouTube video on mirror therapy and found it super fascinating.

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From what I’ve seen mirror therapy even works if you’re not an amputee. I’ve seen on TV before where people would hide their arm behind a partition and it would be replaced by a rubber one, and then someone would stroke both their real arm and fake one for awhile, and after they started getting used to the sensation, they would bring out a hammer and smash the rubber hand, and everyone that went through that process said they felt actual pain in their hidden hand when the fake one was hit.

yeah, here it is.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/brain-games/videos/rubber-hand-experience/

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what is mirror therapy?

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It’s where they take a mirror and place it in front of you in such a way that one limb is reflecting to where it looks like you have a matching pair. It sounds silly and simple but it does a pretty good job of tricking your brain into thinking your amputated limb is back and working the way it thinks it should. It’s amazing to think of how much your vision is utilized when your brain creates your body’s sense of self.

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Where is the beer?

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Get better soon!

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The beer is at home waiting for me. I’m currently on too many opiates and under medical supervision
 But alcohol IS a vasodilator! XD

Also, thanks for the well wishes, hoss.

OMG for the first time ever my phone tried to autocorrect ‘hoss’


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Update: today they took the wound vac off, removed the sciatic nerve block, and fitted me w a “stump shrinker”. Gonna be wearing this doubled elastic stocking over my stump for what they suggest as 23/7 for the next 3-6 months. The incision is clean and healing well, sorta looks like Oogie Boogie.

Tonight is my last night in the hospital, tomorrow I get shipped out to PT much closer to home for a week or so, and then we go from there, probably outpatient PT 3x/week for a while. Met who will likely end up as my prosthetist, nice young lady.

Progress.

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So, thanks to some complications w my insurance company, it took until today to actually get me shipped out to PT, but I am typing this from the back of the ambulance en route. My plan is to get to the PT joint, prove that I can bathe and cook and get in/out of a car just fine, meet w some specialists about the Ghost of Left Legs Past, and be home w my doggie by week’s end.

Glory, glory hallelujah.

Oh, a quick correction: my stump looks more like Hexxus from Fern Gully than Oogie Boogie.

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Should have signed up for Amazon Prime


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Let’s all agree that there are some things in the world that are too awful to even joke about. And Fern Gully is one of them. Please don’t speak of it again.

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Ooooph
 If by “terrible” you mean “horrifying in a way that haunts one throughout their life whenever they turn the key or spit gum on the sidewalk” then, yeah, absolutely terrible. That film has haunted me ever since I was wee. Otherwise, we can agree to disagree, but either way, no need to dwell on it.

Are you going to start assimilating things so you can be twice as powerful and twice as deadly? Also I can’t bring myself to dislike a movie that has the legendary Tim Curry in it too much, that’s just not right.

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