Harry Parker - Anatomy of a Soldier

‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Push down. Can you feel the bottom of the socket?’

‘I’m not sure.’

You were sitting on a treatment bed and held its edge as you leant forward. Your stump was covered in a white sock. As it descended into my foam insert, filling my interior, I cupped around you.

‘It all feels fairly odd,’ you said. A nerve tingled in the side of your knee as I squashed your soft tissue.

‘It will for a bit. Here, you pull up this suspension sleeve.’ He pulled the grey silicone sleeve up from me and rolled it over your knee and around your thigh. Now we were securely joined together.

‘How does it feel?’

‘There’s quite a lot of pressure on the sides,’ you said.

I was pressing painfully into your medial condyle and the head of your fibula.

The man ran his thumbs along where my plastic and foam curved in and you could feel his fingers through the silicone. ‘We need this area for lateral support, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘I can always push it out a bit. Getting the sockets just right will be a balance of comfort and support. The more we shave off here, for instance, where it’s digging in, the less support the socket will give you.’

‘It’s not too bad, Mike. Let’s see how I get on, if that’s how it’s meant to be.’

‘I can always adjust it later.’

He walked over to a collection of other legs propped up by a mirror, each topped with a different-shaped socket moulded to fit the stumps of broken people like you. He picked one out and brought it over.

‘Now let’s try the above-knee socket,’ he said. ‘We’ll try you on this mechanical knee to start.’

You pulled a white sock up around your stump and took the end of the plastic socket from him.

There was no symmetry to your injuries. The other socket was bigger than mine and plugged around your stump up to the base of your pelvis. The metal frame and cylinder of the knee joint knocked against me as you adjusted it, grunting as you pushed into the socket and wincing at the unnatural feeling.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Fine, thanks.’

‘You won’t need this belt forever, but we normally start people with one, just while they learn. It’ll keep the prosthesis on until you can take a better suspension system.’ He pulled a strap up from the socket and helped you pass it around your back. You secured the Velcro.

‘Want to give it a go?’ he said.

‘Of course.’ You were nervous and shuffled across to your wheelchair. You felt the weight of me pulling down awkwardly on your stump, out in front of the chair. You wheeled forward and positioned us at the end of the parallel bars.

‘Wait a second, Tom,’ he said. ‘I’d better get Kat before we send you off. She’s always telling me I’m not qualified. She’ll want to be here to make sure you’re doing it right.’

‘We don’t want her missing any of the fun.’

He went and you looked down at us. We made your proportions right again and you smiled. We were metal, a collection of bolts, carbon tubes, plastic and rubber. We didn’t fill the space your muscles and flesh used to; we were too thin and hard-edged, but suddenly, at the end of me, there was a shoe. Your nerves fired and you could feel the ghost of your foot, right where you could see it. You could feel what you saw.

You tried to wiggle your toes and almost expected to see the shoe flex, but your feet were frozen in their final moment. You lifted your leg and I pulled forward and the weight of me tugged down, lifeless, and the illusion was painfully broken. You stopped smiling. You ran your fingers over my components, studying how the carbon rod was bolted to the bottom of my socket and holding my foot at its end.

This is what I’m going to be, you thought. This is the beginning.

She came back with him. ‘Hi, Tom,’ she said. ‘Mike says you’re ready for lift-off.’

‘I didn’t want to be responsible for any of your patients doing a face plant, Kat,’ he said, spinning an Allen key in his hand and leaning over the bars to look at us.

She stepped around beside you.

‘Quite,’ she said. ‘No face plants on the first day if we can possibly avoid it.’

‘We save them for later, do we?’ you said.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You just wait for your first stairs session, Tom. They’re usually very entertaining.’

‘I told you, Tom,’ he said. ‘You lucked out with your physio.’

‘Right, hold on to the bars and pull yourself up. No heroics. Just check for comfort.’

You grabbed the two parallel bars that extended towards a mirrored wall in front of us, then pulled forward and levered yourself out of the wheelchair. Your stump squashed down into me as I took your weight.

I was designed to push in against certain areas of you, where there was less damage and scarring, against your patellar tendon below your knee cap and up around the back of what was left of your calf. I pressed in there now and you blew a sharp breath.

‘Okay?’ she said.

‘A bit sore.’ You were bearing your weight through your arms and slowly relaxed them so you sank into me, the soft tissue of your stump compacting. We were taking all of your weight and your hands hovered above the rails. You swayed forward and back. And then the mechanical knee beside me collapsed as the geometry passed its breaking point and you grabbed for the rails and sat back heavily into the chair.

‘Well caught. Just remember that the above-knee will release if you flex it too much,’ she said. ‘How did that feel?’

‘Not too bad,’ you said and looked down at me.

‘What about comfort?’ the man said. ‘Still pressing in?’

‘It is a little.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll sort that.’ He ducked under the bar and knelt in front of you. ‘Let’s whip it off.’

You rolled down the sleeve that held us together and slid out your stump. The man carried me into a workshop where other men were bent over machines wearing goggles and masks, cutting carbon or moulding sockets around casts. He’d made me in here, forming me around a plaster copy of your stump. And then he’d fastened an adaptor to me and assembled me, bolting on my pylon and attaching my foot. He walked over to a bench now and filed down the lips of my socket, widening my opening.

‘Try this,’ he said after he’d taken me back into the treatment room.

You pulled me on again. ‘Thanks, that feels better already.’

‘Stand up,’ she said. ‘We’ll attempt a few steps.’

You pulled yourself back up with a grunt, lowering your weight down into me as you slowly released your grip on the bars.

‘Keep holding on, Tom, and then just place your foot forward. The below-knee prosthetic should be a fairly natural action. The above-knee will take more getting used to. It’s all about using your bum muscles for control.’

You edged forward, lifted me off the ground and I swung. The weight of me acted like a pendulum, and then my heel touched back onto the ground and you’d taken your first step. You rocked your weight over me and the mechanical knee was swinging past, its hydraulic piston arm sliding gently out among the crossing struts of the knee’s polycentric frame.

You gripped the bars and looked up at the mirror and saw yourself standing there, upright and walking. You watched us move forward and took another step.

She was behind us, holding your waist to steady us. ‘That’s it,’ she said and looked around you, smiling.

You saw her in the mirror and smiled back. ‘It feels amazing to be up,’ you said.

‘You’re doing well. Try and lengthen your stride a bit. That’s it.’

You stepped out again, placing me farther away from you, and your stump wobbled in me as we impacted with the ground. Then you rolled over me as the other leg swung past. I was hurting you but you concentrated and didn’t feel it.