CL

Date of amputation: 1993
Time post amputation: 4 years
Age 38 : Female
Motorbike accident : brain damage and loss of arm

I can remember nothing of the accident, or of the time around it. The flail arm was amputated thirteen months after the accident. There was just all this pain. I forget so easily. That is the brain damage I had. I accept it, but it is hard for other people to accept. To feel the stump now its cold, but the whole of the flail arm was like that, so I used to put it on the radiator. It would still feel cold, but when I lifted it off the radiator it would be burnt to pieces. I did that twice and then it was my decision to have the flail arm taken off. I wouldn't want that arm back, it was just dead and it used to get in the way.

Now the arm will move around, but all I can do is up, forward and back. The stump is cold to touch but it doesn't feel cold. The arm seems heavy; heavier than my other arm. The pain is always there, but when I move it seems to pull together; its more solid. I was right handed, and I didn't write with my left hand, I had to learn all that. I don't wear a false arm; what's the point? They are for show. The pain just never goes except when I am sleeping.