Andrew lost his leg above the knee in a 2014 motorcycle accident. After years of socket prostheses causing skin sores and poor fit, he had osseointegration surgery with Professor Alamderis. Now he walks five miles daily on beaches and slopes, and says the prosthetic feels like part of his body.
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Back in 2014, I was riding a motorcycle around a roundabout and a driver who was in the wrong lane changed lanes without looking, caught the back of my motorcycle, which then sent me into a road traffic sign. My right leg was caught between the motorbike and the signpost and suddenly, you know, nearly amputated out the scene. I was taken to the Royal London where I was amputated below the knee initially, and then 2 days later above the knee because they, they couldn't save the actual knee joint. So I learned to walk at Roehampton, and I was fitted with sockets at Roehampton, and laterly with Dorset Orthopaedics. And the sockets are, well, I found quite difficult to get on with. Quite often they wouldn't fit properly, or they would rub, maybe more precisely, the socket would rub on the stump, so you get sores on the stump and they'd rub around the groin where the plastic, the hard plastic met your soft skin. So yeah, quite often I'd have sores from wearing the sockets. And also on occasions I found that the socket of the liner would lose contact with the socket and the airlock seal would be broken So then I'd have to refit the limb, and that might be even after a restaurant or in the cinema and it lost suction, then I'd have to refit the limb wherever it was. So it's quite inconvenient. So I have a patient down at Salisbury Orthopaedics, so they used to make sockets for me, and I heard that they had Professor Almudérez who was coming to give a speech on osseointegration. So I went to that speech and heard what he had to say. I was very convinced by it, and very surprised at myself that I wanted to go ahead with it. It is a big surgery, it's not something to take lightly, but preparing for it I obviously spoke with Dorset Orthopaedics and Mr. Kang and Professor Alamderis on the day of the talk, and I got quite a lot of information from them and also did some research online and what have you. What have you. But yes, it's a big operation and you need to be aware that the rehab following osseo integration is quite lengthy, but it's set out in a logical way and you need to go through each step to get the best out of the osseo integration. I'm trying to get back to what I used to do with the osseo integration. I found that sockets held me back quite a lot, so I could only walk between 1 and 2 miles a day in a socket. And not over generally very rough terrain, rough ground. But with the Osseo Integration, I walk for up to about 5 miles a day and over different surfaces that I could never walk over if I had a socket on. So things like beaches and pebbly slopes, I'm quite comfortable with the Osseo Integration walking over that terrain. But the socket, I wouldn't even try to on some occasions, just because it didn't feel part of me, whereas the Osseo Integrated Limb feels, well, it feels joined to me in a way that the socket never did. So yes, I've got far more confidence in it now. So my family have been really supportive. I've got two young daughters and my wife, and they're really there for me because having any operation isn't nice, but going back to the osseo-integration operation, it's a big operation and I was off my feet for quite a few weeks after, back in wheelchair and what have you, which I initially found quite hard going back to wheelchair when I previously been walking. But no, the family had always been there for me, and as a family we made the decision that the osseo-integration would generally get me back to more fulfilling or more productive lifestyle similar to what we had before I lost my leg.
