What's Worse -- Losing an Arm or a Leg?

[snowyh]

Here's how I rank it, easiest to hardest:

Losing one arm/hand
Losing one leg/foot
Losing both legs/feet
Losing one arm & one leg
Losing one arm & both legs
Losing both arms/hands
Losing both arms & one leg
Losing all four limbs

Needless to say, the higher up the amputation, the more difficult it makes things.

Helen

[kapteenkoukku]

I think it is harder to cope without an arm or hand than without a leg.

I reason this for the experience when I had my right lower arm and thumb in scaphoid cast when I broke my scaphoid bone and I am right handed. I could walk as I walk normally with my BK prosthesis, but I was totally useless without full use of my hand. I could not write or hold fork or anything for three months because scaphoid fracture is difficult to make union, taking shower was difficult and many other things. I managed to use computer keyboard with other fingers though, but it was slow because of immobile wrist. And I did not learn to use my left hand for the writing during that period, no matter how hard I tried. Some other functions that I normally do with my right were clumsily manageable.

[ann58]

I agree Snowyh & Kapteen...I do think losing an arm/hand would be the worst.

[stinker373]

Losing an arm would be worse to me . If you are missing feet or legs you can still walk and use them. It seems an arm would be worse off.

[bluedogz]

Gotta agree... I am RAE and it's often frustrating. I often feel sort of guilty, because I often thank God for sparing my legs and mind in a crash that threatened both. There's also a lot more prosthetic tech devoted to you leggers, because there's so many more of you.

[cherylm]

Until I started meeting upper-extremity amps (Helen was my first "personal connection"), I would have agreed with the rest of the "leg" crowd that losing an arm was more difficult than losing a leg. To a degree I still feel that there are more "complications" to losing an arm, simply because there is so much more difficulty in developing upper extremity prosthetics that are both comfortable and highly functional.

But as far as just "getting along well in life," well, I stopped noticing that Helen was dealing with life one-armed after I'd known her for about 15 minutes. Like many, many upper-extremity folks, she's found her adaptations and made her adjustments, and she gets along brilliantly. In fact, since I was still a pretty new part of the limb-loss community at that time, i felt quite clumsy and limited compared to her!

I've come to the conclusion that losing "one of anything" can most likely be overcome to a "close-to-normal" degree with a combination of determination, cleverness, and prosthetics. The area that does make me nervous, though, is losing any combination of arms and legs together. I know that my particular suspension system would be fairly hard to don without both arms, for example. But I've met bilateral, triple, and quad amps who are (to my mind) amazingly active people...so it seems that we can all be much more than "the sum of our parts!"

I'd probably build my list of severity like this (easiest to most difficult):

Losing one leg or one arm below the knee or elbow

Losing one of either with additional joints involved

Losing both legs

Losing one arm and one leg together

Losing both arms

Losing both legs and one arm

Losing both arms and a leg

Quad amputee

It's interesting how we all manage to adapt to our own circumstances, though, isn't it?

[allenuk]

And after all this time, it's still blindness that bothers me most. (I have pretty good sight, although only in one eye - maybe it's the 'one eye' bit that concentrates the mind!)

Allen.

[bluedogz]

On thinking, the thing that affects my life more than anything has little to do with my amputation... my ears are going bad so that even normal conversation over a bit of background noise is difficult. That slows me down more than my arm (or lack thereof) ever could. I try to avoid asking for help for manual tasks, but have little choice but to say, 'What?' when I can't hear someone.

[cherylm]

Yeah, vision and hearing seem to me to be "more major" than limb count as well. I spent three months classified as "legally blind" following my amp...the vision was far more troubling than the leg. I recently had a laser treatment to dissolve a "protein capsule" from inside my right eye (amazing the things that have formed in my right eye over the years), which now gives me actually pretty good vision on the right side and "tolerable" vision on the left...it's been a great gift to be able to see clearly again!

[allenuk]

And while we're at it!

Tinnitus!!!

I think in many ways I'd rather have a sore stump than tinnitus. Mine comes and goes, and for the past few years it's been 'low level', but occasionally (certain medications bring it on, I think) it pushes back to 'moderate' or even maddening sometimes.

At least with a sore limb you can sit down/got to sleep and it goes away from a bit. Once tinnitus is running at 8 or 9/10, it's there ALL the sodding time.

Ah well, thankful as usual for small mercies.


Allen.

[bluedogz]

Now I know why my mom said to turn the music down...

[ann58]

Apr 4, 2010 15:39:09 GMT -7 bluedogz said:

Now I know why my mom said to turn the music down...

Will a hearing aid work or help?

[bluedogz]

Uh... what?

Seriously, though... a hearing aid might help, but insurance will not pay for it. A hearing device of any quality is a $1500 investment, and a really good one can run $5k. I've been out of real work for a couple of years, so for now I just say, 'What?'

My new job provides an HSA though, so I hope to use it soon.