A great morale boosting day.

A BBC colleague who underwent the same amputation as me 3 years ago in a motorbike accident came up from London.

We immediately got down to talking about stumps, prosthetics and phantom pains in the same way that most people would discuss holiday plans or the weather. He laid out his artificial legs in a row and showed me the pros and cons of each – from the bog standard NHS model to a top of the range Madame Tussauds style prosthetic that looks almost identitical to the real thing, down to the leg hairs, veins and freckles (it's second left in the picture):



It’s the first time I’ve been able to talk at length with someone who has been through the process – from accident, through rehab to life after amputation. I saw the light shining brightly at the end of the tunnel – someone who’s able to live a life as full and active with one foot as he did with two. I was looking carefully and I swear I couldn’t detect a limp.

Discuss "Beyond Northern Iraq"