So, what's it like? Remembering January 4, 2008...

Tomorrow is January 4, 2011. I can say with a little prodding I can remember most of the previous January 4ths in my life except one.

Three years ago, as many of you know, I lost my right foot to an infection that started with a sore on my foot and progressed into the bone. The infection moved into my blood and made me seriously ill. I was hospitalized from January 2 though January 12.

It would be cliched of course to say that the experience was life changing. No question about it. Every day when I wake up I am reminded of that day when I put my prosthetic, which I lovingly named "Buster" after the Mythbuster's crash test dumy, on my stump and stand up to walk. Not to make things too awfully melodramatic but the time I spent in the hospital was the closest I have come to crossing over and checking out of this life.

I remember little about the actual procedure. Before and after the actual operation my memory is clear but as for the time I was in the operating room I am told it was all over in about a half-hour, when it had been thrown about that I would be in surgery for an hour, maybe as many as three hours.

One of the things that strikes me to this day was that when I was being rolled out of my room to head on to surgery two pastors from the church the inmates at the community corrections center I worked at prayed with me from the door of my hospital room to the elevator, and I remember telling the orderly who was with me upon her asking me that those guys were pastors of a prison ministry.

Her reaction was a bit comical but I remember telling her not to worry, I was an officer and NOT an inmate. I am not an energetic religious person but I do believe and at the time I figured that major surgery needs good words spoken, plus, the guys were also conveying the prayers of the inmates at the center, and that they genuinely cared how things turned out with me.

Once downstairs I was wheeled around to the operating theater in which Bryan Hawkins, MD would perform the surgery. Pre-op medication was kicking in and I was quite stoned at this point, but I do remember the brilliant sunshine streaming through the windows of the holding area of the surgery suite at St. Francis hospital. There was a tree just outside the window and I remember that it's branches were broken from the ice storm that occured a month before.

The techs were busy getting things ready and I was wheeled in. I was transferred to the table and they started strapping me down. Then the lights went out. I was under and it was a peaceful sleep indeed. Nothing bizarre in terms of dreams, just a real DEEP nap. Then some sharp sounds stirred me.

It was weird. My brain was rebooting but the first thing that ran through my mind was that it sounded like I was at a restaurant. It sounded like when you are at a big chain restaurant on a Friday night and you are seated by the kitchen entry and you can hear the plates and silverware being clattered around before they come out and deliver your food. I took a deep breath expecting to smell fajitas or wood smoke or something that would tell me where I was but all I could smell was the sterile, antiseptic smell of a hospital and BOOM! I was awake.

There was no pain. I knew I had made it through the surgery. I was still loopy from the drugs but strangely, I felt better. Not a million bucks better, but it was a "just-got-paid" feeling. The surgeon had told me that by midnight I would begin to feel better as the infect blood marrow was gone and fresh, uninfected blood would be slowly returning, with help from the antibiotics. It actually started as I was being wheeled back to the room.

I could see the relief on my mothers face, and my sisters and my ex-wifes. I had a strong desire to see my son Sean but it was best that he didn't see me right then. I am glad of that, and I am glad he saw me a few days later when I had some time to feel human again. I am told that I was the life of the party once I got settled in my room, but I don't remember most of it.

When I look back now after 3 years it still hasn't sunk in how far I've come. As for the answer to the question about what it's like, really, it's like I have a foot down there in terms of the feeling. Every so often, it feels like I am making fists with my toes...just like Bruce Willis is told to do to ward off jet lag in the first Die Hard Movie and that sensation has occurred practically since I came out of surgery.

Beyond that, I feel basically normal. When I'm not wearing Buster my right leg feels like it is swinging away from my body out to the side. The thing that motivates me forward is that I LIVED through all this. I was given a second chance and I don't intend to waste it.

Year four begins tomorrow. I'm ready.