Biggest update to share…the car finally arrived, with hand controls and all! We ordered the car last year. It arrived at the dealer around March of this year and then I had it sent down to Tampa, FL to have the digital hand controls installed in April and now it’s finally here! I took it for a spin yesterday. The first spin was just around the block, to get the car inspected. We took it to the auto shop around the block, got it inspected, and then we were good to go! Then later on in the day, I drove to my parent’s place, with Ben in the car as well, ..for moral support…b/c it’s not as if he has a gas and brake pedal on his side, like a driver’s ed car. My folks live just 3 miles away from us, so I took all local roads. Not quite ready to venture onto the highway just yet. It was such a weird feeling to be driving again, let alone be sitting in the driver’s seat. It’s been a year and a half of being a passenger every time I get in a car..so being in the driver’s seat and doing the actual driving was pretty awesome. Pics/Video to come…
My thoughts on driving with hand controls…
There’s a lot going on. I’m doing EVERYTHING with my hands, obviously. It’s a tad overwhelming, but I’m sure I’ll adjust. Being that I was an experienced driver prior to the accident, it wasn’t the driving that I was nervous about, per se…it was driving with hand controls that I was nervous about. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Obviously, I’ll have to get used to driving with my hands…but there are a couple of things that are a little tricky as a newbie to driving with hand controls. For instance, accelerating when turning is something that I’ll have to get a feel for. Since the accelerator ring is set inside the steering wheel, I have to grip the steering wheel to both steer and apply the gas, and getting the right grip and applying the right pressure to the “gas” will take a little bit of practice. The other thing I noticed is, it’s a little tricky to do things that I used to do with one foot and two hands now…it’s not like I lost a foot and gained a hand, so it’s tricky doing something I used to need 3 appendages to do, with only 2. For example, when your in tight spots or backing out of a driveway, you need to turn the wheel before you put the car into gear. “Normally”, you’d do this by, using your hands to turn the wheel, putting your foot on the brake, and then with one hand still holding onto the wheel, you’d take your right hand to put the car into gear and then take your foot off the brake to move it to the gas pedal, and then go. Still with me? But now…I have to do all that with my hands. I use both hands to turn the wheel, then take one hand off the wheel and put it on the brake. But..I still have to put the car into gear while keeping one hand on the brake and one hand on the steering wheel. Problem is, I only have 2 hands. I have to use 2 fingers of my left hand to hold the wheel and the remaining 3 to hold onto the brake and then my right and to shift the car into gear. So, driving might be a little more complicated nowadays, but I guess I’ll figure it out, just like I’ve figured everything else out…

Some other miscellaneous updates and thoughts…
Back when I was in the hospital and was trying to look on the bright side of things, I thought, well…at least I’ll be able to wear skinny jeans now with prosthetics! Apparently, I was wrong. My right prosthetic is “skinny” enough but my left prosthetic is bigger than my own, real, muscular calves were. So much for skinny jeans. So much for any jeans. Of the 20 pairs of jeans I own, I can only fit into 2 pairs of them, barely…
As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, a lot of my clothes no longer fit me. It’s one thing when clothes that I’ve owned for a while no longer fit me, it’s another when clothes that I bought less than a year ago no longer fit me properly!…What the hell?!?!…

I’ve graduated to “big girl” exercises at therapy. The post-op exercises that used to be my main exercises, are now my warm-up exercises. I’m now doing kneeling exercises, bridges, planks, kneeling push-ups off of a Bosu ball (flat platform on one side and dome ball on the other), and other fun stuff…Even though it’s much harder and challenging, I prefer them over the warm-up ones…those were kinda boring…but don’t tell my PT…And on that note…To anyone that’s planning on having their legs amputated..it pays to be in shape before-hand…it helps. =) I didn’t think I was in shape, but apparently I was in much better shape than most people. Who knew?!?

It’s been 3 months since my last operation and I’m STILL pulling stitches out of my leg…”dissolvable” stitches, my ass. My wound/scar is healed, but I develop these pimples/blisters constantly b/c the stitches are trying to work their way out of my body. Sorry for being gross….I pop the pimples/blisters, goo comes out, and then eventually a stitch gets squeezed out. Sometimes the process of a pimple/blister forming and getting popped occurs several times before the stitch actually evacuates my body. Fun times.
Again…sorry for being gross…I was sitting on the toilet recently…and had a thought…It’s the best place to do your thinking, right? Hehe. I thought, it’s a good thing my right leg is the one that got amputated above the knee and is the shorter one. Reason being….I’m a righty and therefore use my right hand to wipe my butt. So…that means, I lean over to my left side and lean on my left leg, to lift the right side of my butt up in order to use my right hand to wipe it. (Sorry again…just keeping it real…) But, if my left leg was the one that was amputated above the knee and shorter, then I’d have to lean over to the right and use my left hand to wipe my butt. I mean…I guess I would’ve “learned” to use my left hand to wipe my butt and eventually gotten the hang of it. But, I’m glad that’s one thing I didn’t have to learn.

Update – Since I started drafting this post, I’ve driven on the highway. We drove, I drove…to my in-laws to surprise them and show them our new car. My in-laws live in Westchester and we live in Queens, so I had to drive over the Whitestone Bridge and take a couple of different highways. I was hesitant at first and thought Ben should do the driving, but I bit the bullet and went for it. We figured, worst case, if I was feeling uncomfortable, we could pull over somewhere and he could take over. But, I made it…safe and sound!
I think I want to create a bumper sticker that says, “Person W/O legs driving…DON’T honk!”…or something along those lines. Hehe. I’m taking suggestions. =)

Next post – pics and video of car and me driving!!!