Leaving Treadmarkz Across the Universe

by Treadmarkz

It’s called Body Integrity Identity Disorder, and it’s sufferers are called “wanna-bes”, as in “I’ve got two legs but I wanna-be an amputee. It is not listed or accepted as an official disorder. Sounds like something I made up, but there are cases of it all over the world, as I discovered in a documentary by Melody Gilbert called “Whole.” The Wanna-bes in the film referred to their voluntary amputations as “body correction surgery.”

Having been disabled since birth, I thought this idea was completely alien to anything that I’d ever imagined could possibly cross the human mind.

Though I don’t know why I’m surprised. We are interesting creatures.

But I almost drew the line when one of the subjects of the study, who had two perfectly good legs, referred to one of them as “superfluous.” I thought “Two perfectly good legs and you don’t want them, in fact deem them unnecessary?” This is when the idea of a Paraplegic and Amputee’s Goodwill Store” occurred to me.

But half-way through the film I realized that I could identify in some small way. I mean I have many times damned my own useless legs for getting in my way. I don’t damn my disability, just my legs being there for no reason. So much extra work, just getting in the car and having to bring my legs too.

The film told the story of a non-amputee who lived as one by tying one leg up inside his pant leg. This man said “I don’t feel incomplete [being forced to live with both of his legs intact], I just don’t feel like that part of my body belongs to me.” Okay that is close to what I have described, with my own legs, but again, mine are useless! I joke about cutting mine off all the time, but I wouldn’t do it. I’ve got stuff to do!

Another wanna-be’s wife helped him cause himself frostbite so he could realize his dream of becoming an amputee, while another threatened to leave her husband if he went through with it. This man was willing to not only risk his safety and his life, but, if he made it through, his marriage. He was willing to die for it. This was not an uncommon expression of desperation among the wanna-bes. One said that if he found he could never become an amputee he might consider suicide.

Which brings us to Dr. Robert Smith of Scotland, the Jack Kevorkian of wanna-be amputees, if you will. One of his patients pretty much fought him into submission, convinced him to perform the amputation by making the doctor see that he was going to keep hurting himself, either by giving himself frostbite or by shooting himself in the leg, until he got what he wanted. So now not only do we have the right-to-die issue on the table, we’ve got the right to lose a limb surgically for no reason. And now Smith is the poster boy for voluntary amputation surgery, or “body-correction”. Because Smith could see beyond a doubt that the safety of his patient was in extreme jeopardy and he had to act to make sure that he did not let the man’s condition cause him harm that he could prevent.

It’s called the Hippocratic Oath. Millions of doctors world-wide are sworn to it. It is not a requirement like the oath one takes before taking the witness stand, but among doctors who do choose to take the oath, it is considered binding; a matter of honor. Part of the oath is to “never do harm to anyone”. The problem here is that, sure, you could say that cutting off someone’s leg when it is not injured, infected, damaged or otherwise endangering the patient is indeed harming him. But if he is threatening to shoot his leg off at home, he could be doing himself much more damage than a surgical amputation would.

Another wanna-be said if his dream did not come true, he’d probably be alright, because of all of the other things that’d happened in his life. He said it with almost the same pensive expression that, in the movie “Field of Dreams,” Dr. Moonlight Graham said it wasn’t a tragedy that he only got to play baseball for a day, but that “If I’d only gotten to be a doctor for one day, that would have been a tragedy.”

So, clearly this is very serious for the people who have this disorder, and I mean to treat it as such. But when you don’t understand, you make light, and I’ve gotta be honest, after seeing this film, I still don’t completely understand. Not completely.

NOTE: Please read the very informative first response to this posting.