I'm so Bored that I became a ghost

In a recent blog post, I promised to become a pirate.

Well, I had my surgery on Wednesday, had my right leg amputated below the knee.

To my surprise, I did not instantly transform into a pirate. I did not have a strange urge to go pillage a village or sail in search of buried treasure.

Although I have been watching the 4th Pirates of the Carribean movie today...

No, I am not a pirate (not yet, at least).

However, I have been transformed (partially) into a real, live ghost!

You can't see it, but my right leg is still there...as a ghost

After my amputation on Wednesday, I had to feel the cast and look at my leg to convince myself that most of it was gone.

I have a phantom limb, and it feels as real as ever, except that it can pass through objects. 

Currently, my right leg is hanging through the couch, with my foot dangling just above the floor, because I can't straighten my leg at the moment. 

I could go on for days about all the weird sensations, about phantom pain and phantom paralysis, but I skipped my pain meds to come downstairs and write this post for y'all, so I'm about to pass out from the pain in my residual limb. Thus, I will focus on one thing - proprioception. 

Although Blogger doesn't think it's a word, proprioception is the sense you use to know where your body parts and other objects are in relation to the rest of you. 

I'm betting, unless you have some serious neural damage, that you can close your eyes and touch your nose with your finger. 

Surprisingly, you can do this with your eyes closed.

Propioception allows blind people to get dressed in the morning. It allows you to walk without tripping over your own feet (at least some of the time...) It allows you to brush your teeth without looking in the mirror the whole time.

And, it allows me to have a superpower. 

My right foot and lower leg is a ghost. Part of me exists in an alternate reality, a separate plane of existence. 

I feel the couch close to the cast on my residual limb, and I feel my leg hanging down, straight through the couch.

The couch does not touch my leg (I cannot feel it against or around my phantom leg), but it occupies the same space at the same time, and my proprioception tells me this. 

I flinch when I put on my prosthetic leg, instinctively scared that the fake foot is going to crash into my phantom foot. Instead, it passes through painlessly. 

My friend TQ - You remember TQ, right? - came to visit me yesterday, along with Bob/Rambo (who should totally write a guest blog post about his own ghost limb, by the way). 

Anyway, TQ karate chopped my phantom limb and his hands passed straight through. They were here, in this world.

My leg, though, is gone, and it remains only as a ghost. 

But you can't see it with a flashlight.

The strange thing is, I can't help thinking that my leg does still exist, that my leg's essence is hanging around, waiting to be rejoined to me when I join it in eternity.

This may sound crazy, but my phantom limb is a reminder to me that there is more than this world, that when the things and people we love leave, they are never truly gone. They are still as real as they always have been. We just can't see them anymore.

Of course, as I'm saying all these kind things about my phantom limb, I already have an appointment Monday to start changing/getting rid of it altogether.

You see, my phantom limb hurts ALOT, and it's mostly paralyzed, tied to this world where it doesn't belong.

And it is time for it to leave. I have to let go of my lower leg entirely. I have been reminded that it will always be there, but now I am sending my leg to heaven ahead of me, where Jesus may remold it during the rest of my journey on Earth. 

When that journey is done, I will be made whole by my Creator and Lord, and the ghost will become flesh once more.

I know this is a weird blog post, moving from a joke to religious meditations. Blame the meds if you want, but I'm not being crazy. I stand by every word of this post.n 

And, in case you thought I was ending on a serious note, you should know that I'm straightening out my phantom knee right now, and my right foot is now just hanging out inside the framework and cushions of the couch. 

I am ghost woman -  I can kick through walls (and couch cushions)!

There will be a cool prize for anyone who can design a cool picture of me in a superhero outfit, kicking my phantom leg through a wall, that I can put in this space. Comment below!

Update: 

I am at home now, and I'm a bit more lucid. I actually was not on drugs at the time of the original post, but intense mind-blowing pain has pretty much the same effect. 

To clarify, I do not believe that my leg has a part of my soul with it, that shall go up to heaven before me. I do believe that I will regain my leg in Paradise, but that is a discussion that does not go well with this blog. 

So, in summary, feel free to laugh with me at my pain-induced ramblings (or just ignore that part of the post altogether...) Also, I do still want that picture. PLEASE DRAW ME WITH A GHOST LEG!

That's all, Folks!