I have a big decision to make in the coming days. After my third ankle surgery in less than a year, I’m confronted with whether to let the surgeon operate one more time to attempt a bone graft and more hardware, live with it the way it is or have it amputated below the knee and get a prosthetic leg.

By the end of yesterday, I had pretty much decided on amputation. But this morning as I got up and hobbled to the bathroom on the bad leg, I re-thought it. Even though the ankle is painful, if I have it amputated I can’t get out of bed without either putting on the prosthetic or hopping to the bathroom on crutches or a walker.

I look at my left ankle, afflicted with a form of muscular dystrophy known as Charcot Marie Tooth, and even though it is misshapen, swollen and oddly discolored, it is still whole. It is a full leg with a foot attached despite the curled, claw-like toes that have gotten even more so after each surgery. I try to imagine what it would be like to not have it, to look down and see a leg that ends abruptly in a stump. If you look at my leg now, it is certainly not aesthetically appealing. Would three-quarters of a leg without an ankle and a foot be much worse? Would I feel more handicapped, more freakish or would I just feel unique with a fake leg?

My daily life is limited now in what I can do, in how I’m feeling from the pain and from the large, bulky boot/cast I wear every day. I have become ruled by this disability to the point where what I do and where I go has shrunk to only doing what I must to get through the day. The pain I’ve experienced from it over the last twenty years has been intense and frequent. What if I was free of that? As I write this, the ankle is throbbing and the hurt radiates up my leg and into my whole being. I have chills from the pain as if I’m constantly coming down with the flu.

After calling my friend Marianne in Toronto who has had five bouts of cancer starting when she was eighteen, most recently having a double mastectomy (certainly an amputation), I feel more certain that I can survive and even flourish without the ankle and foot. She’s dealing with PTSD after years of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, the loss of her breasts at a relatively young age and giving up the dream of ever birthing a child. She has experienced a series of losses that I can’t fully understand yet I see her as a true champion, as a flesh-and-blood heroine. She is beautiful beyond belief in both physicality and spirit.

I’ve also been talking with another friend who had a below-the-knee amputation about eighteen months ago. He has been incredibly helpful both in the practical and the abstract with answers to my questions about learnign to walk again, showering, going to the beach, waking up at night and realizing he isn’t in pain anymore. He shared what it was like to be confronted with going up a ramp at a movie theatre the first time on his new leg or climbing a huge flight of stairs on a broken escalator in the San Francisco subway. He just did it. He said when he finally made the decision for amputation, he never looked back or regretted it. He felt free.

My Uncle Jim had his ankle taken off later in life and according to what my mother said at the time, he felt it was the best thing he could have done. He didn’t miss it after years of struggling with wounds that wouldn’t heal and the constant pain. When I think of our similarities, I’m reminded of what mother used to say to me as a boy, “You’re just like your Uncle Jim!” although what she meant at the time was that I was “lazy” and “worthless” just like him.

And despite these personal stories and the YouTube videos of amazingly fit amputees doing all sorts of athletic feats, I still wonder if I will be considered sexually viable or if it will secretly gross my husband or others out? My friend Jack jokingly assures me that my appeal will go up and could even be monetized by doing amputee fetish porn. I watched some of this porn last night to see what a stump on a naked male body really looked like in action. I think I was trying to lessen the “ick” factor that my vain, lifelong secret-desire-to-be-physically-perfect self still harbors. Even at fifty-seven I hold a tiny thread of fantastical hope that I can still be on a billboard in Times Square and passersby will look up and think, “now that’s a handsome man.” Interestingly enough, an old friend has done just that, become a well-known male model at fifty, although truth be told, he was physically perfect even as a struggling actor in his twenties.

So, back to the reality and the black or white decision of to amputate or not. I feel I’ve pretty much made up my mind even as I am vacillating with “what about this?” or “how will such and such work?” or “will I be able to walk and balance?” I’m ready to be free, to own this decision rather than leaving it to the false hope of one more surgery to “fix” me. There is no fix. There is no wrong decision. There is just life.