My Daddy the Cyborg

Matthias Wagner

About the author: Matthias Wagner When I was a child, I used to be very athletic and loved being active, especially outdoors. At the tender age of 18, when I still was a trainee, I had an accident. I had a meniscus injury while playing badminton. Usually nothing tremendous. Within the next years, I had one surgery after another. After the 25th surgery I was diagnosed with arthrofibrosis, a very uncommon disease I had not heard about until then. The doctors tried to remove the tissue and even tried to destroy it by radiotherapy. All these methods weren't successful. In October 2015 , after 4 years full of paralysing pain and limitations in mobility, we finally decided on an amputation of my left leg just above the knee. When I say we, this includes my wife, my two sons (at this time at the age of eight and six years) and of course myself. The decision to choose an amputation also included the challenge to explain to two little kids what was awaiting us during and after this process. We tried a lot to get help from external sources but our society does not cope well with this difficult topic. Even child psychologists could not help us along. This is why we gathered our own experiences and summarized them in this book.