What is a prosthetic, according to Webster's dictionary a prosthetic is "an artificial device that replaces a missing or injured part of the body." What Webster's fails to mention is that a prosthetic also replaces part of who you are.
Imagine losing a very intimate part of who you are, right now look at your hands, feet, or really any part of your body, that can be controlled, and move anything you want. It's extraordinary that a person can have such tight control over a part of their body. Now imagine that that part suddenly vanished. Not only has that person lost a part of themselves, they have also lost a part of who they are.
A prosthetic not only aims to replace the part that's been lost but also aims to give an identity. The only way to accomplish this is for that person to truly make it their own. For a long time, I personally struggled with this. I would get the stock color, a god awful shade of pink, and never put a design on it. This led …show more content…
Not even two days after enlisting a cannonball tore his leg to pieces, requiring a battlefield amputation, surviving the amputation, he was sent home with a 2x4 strapped to his leg so he could walk. This is what he had to say "I cannot look back upon those days in the hospital without a shudder, No one can know what such a loss means unless he has suffered a similar catastrophe. In the twinkling of an eye, life's fondest hopes seemed dead. I was the prey of despair. What could the world hold for a maimed, crippled man!" Deciding this would not be the end of his future, he sat out, through months of solitude, and made his first prosthetic leg. Mr. Hanger's stories important, because it shows that one man decided his future would not be spent as a cripple, allowing many others a future for themselves, all inspired by a