So my first appointment at the prosthetic shop happened, and was surprisingly pleasant. I haven’t been there for five years, and Hanger Clinic is a big corporate operation so the guy I sat with wasn’t the same guy that made my current ill-fitting leg. He criticized all the things I’ve grown to hate about it, so I was inclined to approve of him.
They make a plaster cast of your stump.
I have an appointment in two weeks for a fitting with a trial socket. I told him the only thing I really liked about the current leg was the foot, which is a marvel compared to the old technology. He examined the foot and agreed that it was generally still in fine shape, so we’re going to re-use everything on my old leg except the socket. Which sucks, and always has.
As surprising as old tech like plaster casts is to me after all these years – I’ve been at this for 53 years – that business of “trial sockets” was new to me five years ago. I should have taken it more seriously then and certainly will this time around. If this one isn’t comfortable I’m not going to assume I’ll just get used to it over time. The leg I had before this one lasted 22 years, and I don’t have that many years left in me. I’m not going to spend my remaining years gimping around in pain, even if that means some unknown technician in the Valley has to do it twice.
Happy to hear that some serious improvements may be made! Spending an active life in constant pain is not fun, eh? Good luck…
Good news! Good to hear.
This is great! Best of luck with the new arrangement.
Good luck with the new limb. I’m honestly surprised they don’t have laser scanners for that sort of thing nowadays. Scan, digitize, print up a 3D socket. But it’s not my area of expertise, so who know?
Now you just need to get a concealed shotgun added, or rocket propulsion.
Good to hear that this is progressing well, and I’m looking forward to a positive after action report in the near future.
Hope your new socket goes well and fits.
SO the socket, leg, and foot are all individual swappable components? I mean, if you like the foot and leg (strut?), you just swap out the socket part? Or do you have to get a whole new leg? Is the leg part adjustable for length to account for gait, stride, and height? Or does it have to be cut to the right length and then theres no mechanism for adjustment?
Not counting various connectors the leg consists of three main components: the socket, which is fiberglass and VERY custom, a complex high-tech foot that isn’t custom at all, and a peg connecting them which is basically a pipe. I like the foot I have, it only needs minor refurbishment that consists of parts that are expected to wear out and be replaced but that don’t really affect operation, and disconnecting it from the old socket and attaching it to the new one is a trivial operation involving an allen wrench. So I’m keeping the foot but it might need a different-length peg depending on how long the new socket turns out to be. I just this minute learned that the new leg is costing me something like $900 less than the old one which makes me wonder how much they charge for those feet. Or maybe the Medicare deductible is less, I don’t know.
Also addressing your last question: the pipe is just a pipe and is length-adjusted with a hacksaw. The connectors do allow slight adjustments for pitch and yaw, though.
“Or maybe the Medicare deductible is less”
Good thing you are getting this done now. Considering the axe being wielded by Musk and his DOGE boys, who knows if Medicare will even be around this tome next year. Oh well, Not my circus and sure as hell isn’t my monkey.
I would expect Medicare to be tamed, but around. Too many old people and more added daily. I think Medicare has lost sight of tmission. Kind of like TriCare did for the military.