Patient with diabetes who has had an amputation

My name is Jane Riots and I have been an actor most of my life, although I've done many other things as well. And later on in my life, much later because I'm 78, I had to have this procedure. I say to people I lost a leg because although I'm very lucky because I had below knee surgery which has helped me to walk much quicker and much better. when I went to the gym at Charing Cross Hospital, I was amazed at what I saw because although I didn't have self-pity, I couldn't believe that people had no legs and I hadn't seen it before and so I felt awful actually and I felt a bit that I've been showing off, because obviously it was much easier for me to walk these parallel bars. I saw an awful lot of things that made me realise actually how bloody lucky I am. But I have to say that in a way I lost myself when all this happened, because of course I was me. You can never be me again. When I got home, after a few months, I found the whole thing, to me, couldn't have happened. So I did what I was told and what I was taught, which was wonderful, and I don't know what I would have done without the people who had told me what to do with all kinds of things. But I hated my leg, and it's not very nice to say that I did. And people asked me if I had, in fact, given it a name, and I said no, and they wanted to know why. I said because I hated it. And for the first few months at and I took my leg off. I hid it behind the door. I mean, how stupid was that, by any chance? And I knew it was stupid, but that's how I felt, so I did it. As time's gone by, I didn't hide it because I'm wearing it at the most for all the time, really. And I have to say, it is not uncomfortable. I think I've been very lucky. It's important to note that you walked in here. Yes, that was, I mean it is wonderful and I am so glad that I can walk around to Sainsbury's and shop, I never thought I'd do that. So that, believe it or not, was quite a red-letter day. I am finding it worrying to walk without, I've got this three-legged shopping thing which is brilliant, but on the pavements in London it's quite dodgy and I am frightened of falling but I don't want to break anything. And so, again, probably age, I haven't got the young courage that you will just do it. I've seen younger people just walk very quickly and even without a stick. I've got to consider my options now in my life. So I go up with this three-legged thing, and I have had two attempts trying to get on the bus, which has been almost impossible, because a lot of the bus drivers are on the home bridge, but they don't drive up and stop at the kerbs. There's a great gap between the pavement and getting onto the bus. Starting off, I have found one of the most difficult things for, and in fact, I was with a friend a week ago, and he literally had to pick me up as I was, and put me on me, but I thought it was one of the funniest things that happened to me. Yes, going back to losing me, it is very important because I think in a way, all that's happened is that I cannot be as I was before and I can't run, hop, jump, and I can't go for wonderful walks, long walks, which again, I think if I was younger, I'd be able to do eventually. And I'm so glad that in my life I've done a lot of walking. Yes, I mean, every day is different and I couldn't wait to actually get up and going. Luckily I have that sort of nature where I didn't find it that difficult. Every step I took I was pleased about. I became much happier and in fact of course managed to get back to myself. One of the things that I have to say is that I'm very tired a lot of the time. And this I've had to face up to, I had to accept it because that's how it was. From the effort of using the leg? Yes, totally. So that's changed a lot. I do have a lot of energy, I have an energy now, which you can see because I suppose in a way I'm performing, that has been most of my life. I was very lucky because I had a lot of friends of all ages and I say that because, you know, a lot of them had children but they gave me some time even though they lived far and far away, they got to me and yes, the social services, of course, they're all there. we all know because there's very little money and very few people to cope with my unfortunate age group now. Yes, and again you see I learned so much because I had people coming in in the morning and in the evening and then friends came in between but the thing that I part so difficult was the thoughts that I had to put in. And I'm not joking you, I've never had such thoughts in my life. And to get anything from anybody is almost impossible. And that's very hard when again at the beginning, after you come back after the operation, the energy scope.