Ampuversary.

In two days I will have been an amputee for nine years. 

Nine years.

It was a period of time in my life that I stared the grim reaper in the face.

Had the curtain lowered any further in fact, I would not be able to dazzle you with this high quality prose as the Document would not exist.

It's my blog, gotta plug it.

Anyway, this was normally the time where I would reflect on that day and the days that followed but this year it will just get a passing glance because in 2018...the tenth year...is the milestone that matters.

Instead, I want to focus on the epic illness I suffered prior to the surgery, which in reflection makes me wonder how I survived the ordeal.

My friends, I never EVER want to be that sick again. 

Imagine getting the flu.  Imagine the usual rot...fever, body aches, wicked and convulsive chills. 

In any normal flu you take over-the-counter meds, like aspirin or ibuprofen, fever breaks and you feel better.  Breaking the fever and keeping it broken is the ultimate and in common cases, attainable.

My fever never broke.  Not until medical treatment ensued and not on a permanent basis until after the surgery.  My blood was being poisoned by the infection and thereby slowly killing me.

Very scary when I sit down and devote thought to it.

Somehow my 40-year old body survived it.  Don't ask me how that happened because I have no idea the science of it. 

Nor will I engage the religious aspects of it except to say that the Lord protects fools and drunks, and I rarely if ever drink alcohol.

As I near my 50th year am trying to take greater stock in life itself and my place in it.  Especially when it comes to this event.  We are all here for a very short time and when something like that happens you realize it in a big way.

I lived. I'm lucky to have lived.

My hope is to never lose sight of how lucky I was.

--RL 01/02/2017