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SofaGeorge
New member
casavant said:
I'll tell you the truth about it - but it is a little odd. (But since I think it comes under the heading of "learning experience" and somebody else here might be in the same situation... I might as well share it.)
I met her on the set of a TV show I was working on. She worked as a stand in... which meant that they put her in the position the actor was supposed to be in in order to do lighting and set the mark for cameras. On TV shows you have an incredible amount of down time. She used crutches then... and at first I thought she had a broken leg... she was hot... God delicious hot... so there actually seemed something logical about her having a broken leg... like she had a ski accident or something. Then pretty quickly I caught on... it wasn't broken. She told me she was in a motorcycle accident with her old boyfriend. She was in the hospital for about 6 months... a good chunk of that watching her leg turn into gangrene... then having to make the decission to have it taken off... then rehabing and getting fitted with a prosthesis.
By this time I'd yacked with her enough to know I really liked her. She was a courageous type... independent... and very funny to talk to. She insisted on living alone after her accident when she got out of the hospital. She wanted to take care of herself.
I asked her out... and we made plans to go out to dinner. I went by her place to pick her up. While we were at her house... she pulled out "the book." It was a photo album... her before the accident... then her in the hospital... and then her going through rehab. She told me honestly that she hadn't dated anyone since her accident because just like you or I might have thoughts of trepidation about dating someone who had lost a leg - she had her own fears. She had once had a totally gourgeous body. After the accident she had a missing leg... and a lot of scars... some from the accident... some from grafts. They took big patchs of skin off her back and side to fix other areas.
I realized she was showing me the book to see how I would react to the idea... basically to prep me with the "Do you realize I'm an ugly mass of scars" question mark hanging over her head. (That was the first time I put two and two together too. She always wore long sleave shirts and full sweaters... and skirts down to the floor. She was hiding her body.)
We sat and talked a little longer... hard to explain... but I really liked her. I liked the kind of person she was.
Then, I asked her to show me her leg. She didn't understand what I meant at first and pulled her skirt a bit away from her prosthesis. I shoke my head No. I asked her to take her leg off.
She did. It wasn't that big a deal to her... she did it every day... so it didn't freak her out.
Then... I just looked at it... touched the stump... examined the scars... saw the patch on her leg where they took a 6 x 5 inch hunk of skin off in a square.
She asked me if I wanted to see the rest of it. She took off her skirt... and sweater... showed me all the scars... and there were a bunch...
...but it only took about 2-3 minutes of looking at it and it wasn't a big deal. I can't explain this exactly... but after just sitting down and looking at everything... I didn't even really see her as an amputee anymore. She was just the girl I knew... and we had to walk slow because she was on crutches.
After looking at everything... I didn't have any uneasyness about her, her leg, her scars... anything.
It really wasn't a big deal.
Think about it... if you lost a leg... you'd be the same person you are now.... only without a leg. Think about the most wonderful woman you ever met in your life... she'd still be the same person if she had scars. She'd be the same person without a leg. So would you.
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