Limb Difference Awareness Month

April is Limb Difference Awareness Month! So here are some of my favorite public amputees, doing incredible things and raising visibility.

Oksana Masters has won medals in summer AND winter Paralympic Games in 2012, 2014, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024, and 2026. Iconic.

Amy Purdy is an actress, model, Paralympian, author, speaker, and TV personality perhaps best known for almost winning Dancing with the Stars.

Shaholly Ayers is a stunning runway model.

April Lockhart is a “disabled fashion girlie,” full-time content creator, and strong advocate for the disabled community—not just amputees. She’s always working on projects to bring this community together. Her fashion sense is impressive, and her social media videos are top-tier. Everyone should follow her! @aprillockhart

I love to watch April’s fashion videos and see Oksana in TV commercials. This was unfathomable when I was growing up. Ultrasounds during pregnancy became routine a dozen or more years after I was born. The Internet was 25 years away. So when I, a GenX baby, was born missing half my arm, my mom and dad had zero warning and no access to information, resources, or community.

Thankfully, they did have innate wisdom and lots of love to give. I had high self-esteem because I knew I was loved exactly as I was. I loved my little arm (“Joey”). I even loved my prosthesis, which helped me ride bike and play the piano. My friends thought my prosthesis was cool and would ask me to squeeze their fingers in it as hard as I could.

Yet, something conspicuous was different about me compared to every person I had ever seen with my own eyeballs. The public stares and questions confirmed it. “What happened to your arm?” strangers asked. “I was born that way,” I answered, decades before Lady Gaga. When I asked to take piano lessons, my mom got on the rotary phone and called every person she knew to find someone—anyone—in my situation that she could ask for advice; the closest match was a middle-aged man in our general region whose arm had been paralyzed by polio.

So, when a girl wearing a leg prosthesis was pictured in our local paper doing balance beam? I was spellbound. I put that newspaper clipping on the bulletin board in my room and just stared at it. And not only because I was gymnastics-obsessed. (Every girl was obsessed with gymnastics at that time because of Nadia.)

This newspaper clipping was proof that I was not The Only One. Here was (1) a girl my age (2) with a prosthesis (on her leg, but whatever) (3) doing gymnastics (4) somewhere in Pennsylvania. We were basically twins. That clipping stayed on my bulletin board until I moved in tenth grade.

In high school and college, I felt a bit self-conscious and awkward about my arm because I had left the safety of my childhood home community. But then, in the mid-90s, something magical happened: the Internet. (Thank you, Al Gore.) I don't remember how I found it, but I joined a listserv for the International Child Amputee Network, or I-CAN, a support group for parents of children with limb differences. The group included adult amputee mentors to whom the parents could address their burning questions:

How do you tie your shoes? How do you ride a bike? Do you wear a prosthesis? How do you do a ponytail? How do you fasten buttons? How do you respond when people ask what happened to you? How do you handle the stares? How did you get your driver’s license? What about dating? Can you play sports? Did you require any surgery?

I was gratified to be of service to these parents, but it was equally valuable to me as my introduction to a larger amputee community. I-CAN had a lot of heavy lifting to do as the only national support group specifically for families of children with limb abnormalities. In fact, a big part of the work of that group was simply raising awareness that I-CAN existed.

Through my I-CAN connections, I learned about a week-long camp in Virginia for children with limb differences. I helped as a counselor there for three summers in the late 90s. I-CAN was great, but this was in person! The collective relief we all felt not having to answer questions about our various limbs was incredible. For that one week, nobody cared. We were just people doing fun summer camp stuff. So freeing.

Time went on. After listservs and search engines came forums and chat rooms, and then social media. Now, everything has changed. Endless resources and role models are available. Support groups for families abound. (Lucky Fin is a popular one.)

And there’s awareness. So many different awareness months and national ~whatever~ days. Some might say too many. April is also Autism Acceptance Month, Stress Awareness Month, Arab American Heritage Month, and National Garden Month. April 30 is National Bubble Tea Day, National Honesty Day, and National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day.

It’s easy to tune it all out after a while and maybe even feel cynical. But awareness does matter. Acceptance and representation matter. Visibility matters. Just ask 10-year-old me!

chilling at the shore with my cousins