Hypothetical Scenarios

Join me, if you will, as we fast forward a few years into the future...

You are just another person, in your early twenties, finishing your education and getting things ready for a life ahead of you. Working, paying your bills. Life is good. Then one day something happens that makes you realize you have been making mistakes, a lot of them. What happened is an accident, this accident was caused by a building of your mistakes.

You woke up that morning just like every other. But towards the end of your day the culmination of your mistakes causes the traumatic loss of your right leg from just above the knee. The pain is unbearable, but through proper medical care you are able to deal with it. Then, one day in rehab, someone walks in with a once in a lifetime opportunity for you. They are willing to use their experimental technology to replace your leg.

Now, there is no guarantee that this will be 100% successful, there are risks involved. This person carefully explains the risks and you have a lengthy discussion, part of the risks is that your body could reject the replacement limb and it could be even more painful than the accident that resulted in your loss of said limb.

Weeks of testing and analyzing. Finally, you are ready to begin having a cybernetic limb grafted on to replace your leg. You are told that the process will take several days and that they will have to keep you sedated during the entire procedure. You agree to this and after much preparation you finally lay down on the gurney to begin.

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You wake slowly, your head feels heavy and hollow. Your eyes don't want to open, they seem dry. As you begin to stir, you are helped to sit up. You look around the room and try to remember why you are here. Suddenly everything stops. Your eyes are wide and staring as you slowly draw the sheet back to reveal a natural looking pair of legs. As you closely inspect your right leg, you realize that it even has the 4 inch scar below the knee from a childhood accident. You slowly reach down to touch it and gasp, jerking your hand back as you realize you felt as your fingers touched the scar.

You slowly try to move your toes. Your whole foot moves with the effort instead of just the toes. The person who offered you this miracle is standing beside you and begins to explain that the muscles in the cybernetic limb are yet untrained so that you can learn to use them as you would your own. So that your movements and strength will be natural.

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A few months later, you are back on your feet. Things are going well, you have learned to walk again, even started running recently. The only evidence remaining from your accident is a small scar around the top of the replacement limb and occasional phantom pains. But they are bearable when compared to the freedom you have been granted once more.

Then one night you wake up with the sensation that you leg is on fire. You look at your leg and are horrified to see that the scar is beginning to open. You immediately call your benefactor and inform them of this development, and you are advised to return to the facility where the procedure took place as soon as possible.

Several hours later when you arrive, the sun is beginning to rise in a beautiful display of colors and beams of light. But you are having to be carried into the building as your body has continued to reject the foreign limb, you are nearly comatose from the pain as the prosthesss is visibly beginning to separate from your leg.

The next two days of surgeries and lack of pain medications due to your body's rejection of the prosthesss are the worst of your life. The cybernetic leg has been a total loss, the doctors have been forced to remove even more of your leg, making it not only impossible to attempt the procedure again, but also unlikely that any type of prosthesis will ever work for you.

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It's been nearly a year now and you are neatly re-wrapping the white gauze around the stump. Your hands pause and your eyes go misty as you remember what it was like to walk again for those short months. You feel a tinge of regret that you ever agreed to the experiment, but you shake your head as you realize that you wouldn't trade those months for anything.

You shift your body carefully from the bed to your wheelchair and wheel yourself out into the yard to enjoy the early morning hours in quiet. In the back of your mind two words echo continuously...

If only...

If only you hadn't made all of those mistakes to begin with, you wouldn't have ever required the experiment...

**********

I was told I should write, that I was good at it.

I still don't believe you.

But here ya go.

I tried.

I still love you.

I miss you.