V.I.P (Very Important Post).

There’s a few reasons why this is arguably the most important post thus far, on my blog.

The first reason is the obvious one: it’s the first time I’ve posted a picture of myself since my surgery. So there it is, I’ve had a below-the-knee amputation of my right leg. Not so bad is it?

But there’s something more important in the two photographs shown above:

The first photo was taken the night before my surgery. I can see the strain on my face and there’s not much in the way of smiles anywhere in the picture is there?

The second was taken the night after I got home from hospital. I can see the relief written all over my face and there’s smiles all round.

The second picture proves something that I really could not have known when the first picture was taken. That there’s not only life after an amputation, but there’s immediate, loving, joyous, and most importantly ‘normal’ life after an amputation.

It also shows that after eight days away from home, what my little girls needed is their Daddy back - one leg, two legs, prosthetic legs, no legs, it really doesn’t matter. Just Daddy, at home, doing bedtime.

I’m not going to pretend that every minute of the week or so since I lost my leg has been sunshine and flowers, as it really has not. There are times when I see my reflection in a door or window - me in a wheelchair, one lower leg missing and my heart breaks as much as when I first understood the inevitably of it all.

Or, that I haven’t woken up in the night thinking ‘my foot’s freezing cold’, only to realise that what I’m feeling is an entirely phantom neurological sensation, from a foot that’s no longer there. I’ve done both of these things and much, much more like them.

But in mine and my little girls faces on that second photo, I see what’s most important in all of this: The love of family and how it can conquer adversity, in whatever form, without so much as... breaking stride.

And I thank God every day, for both.