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AIMEE MULLINS: I remember the first time I saw a pair of my legs in a museum.
It was weird.\ \
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I probably shouldn't be telling you all that.\ \
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As a teenager, I'm sitting there with basically the same version of what I'd always had\'97of
what most amputees have had since the 30s, basic kind of wooden legs that are y'know,
really for orthopedic shoes.
Now, not as a teenager, not ever will I be wearing an orthopedic shoe.
So I was shoving this flat foot into, it was kind of like a little motorcycle boot.
Not a big heel, but probably an inch.
It was pitching me a little bit forward so my knees and my hips and my lower back were
gonna take that impact, but as a teenager we do ridiculous things for vanity and I was
doing that.
So I was traveling with a man who was responsible for developing the cheetah leg.
We were sitting in this airport ready to board a plane.
He looked down and said y'know, I can't believe you're doing that to your back and to your
knees.
That's just\'97it's really bad and you need to just accept it.
You are a double amputee.
You should accept that.
And I\'97I remember being like not even knowing where to start with my rebuttal.
Uh, I have accepted it.
I live it every day, but also why should I be immune to experiencing the same thing that
every other teenager is experiencing and furthermore why is that I can go to Madame Tussaud's wax
museum and see a leg that absolutely in every way replicates a human leg but I can't have
one to wear with a high heel?
With any kind of an elevated heel?
And I thought, wait a second, why is there never\'97why have I never met somebody who
went to art school working in a prosthetic lab?
It's this area where it's usually\'97the role of aesthetic is abandoned.
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And when I say aesthetic, I'm not talking about the need to have something that looks
human, it just has to be beautiful to the wearer and has to be something that evokes
a sense of ownership and confidence.
So there is something about that very intimate relationship between us and our assistive
medical devices that needs to be honored.
Whether it's your eyeglasses or your contacts, why shouldn't they be custom?
Why shouldn't they allow you to feel proud of it?
Developments in the world of prosthetics are happening in leaps and bounds.
Just the other day, I got two new sets of legs.
One was the Biomes from a company called iWalk out of Massachusetts, but it was really the
sockets.
It's a new kind of socket for me that completely changed my alignment.
I mean, I actually got taller and the legs weren't any taller than my old legs, but I
was almost a half inch taller simply from standing straight.
For the first time in my life, my alignment is allowing me to stand perfectly straight
and perfectly still so I'm not constantly fighting y'know and moving my muscles around
to hold a stable position which is something I just had gotten used to my entire life in
the sense of I've adapted to what didn't work and made it work and now you don't have to
make it work anymore.
You can get something that fits your body properly, so I'm really curious to see as
we add, continue to add assistive medical devices to our bodies, what does that look
like with our locomotion?
And y'know what are the new kinds of beautiful movements we'll come up with?\
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