CUT OFF MY LEG
nted to have my leg amputated. When ld my dad he was horrified. He couldn’t derstand why I wasn’t just grateful to be e. But I took matters into my own hands. One day I called an old friend, Anthony mbert. We’d met years earlier when ading out to serve in Iraq in 2007. He was a surgeon, the best in the amputation business and we set a date for him to take off my right leg.
When I slowly opened my eyes on November 25, 2010 after the surgery it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders.
IENGAGED the muscles in my right leg and what was left of the limb rose obediently like a drawbridge. My whole body felt warm and for the first time in years my mind was clear. Within hours my family were all around me while Dr Lambert told me the operation had gone well. And yet strangely, I could sense from his manner that there was something he wasn’t telling me. Within days I discovered exactly what that was. When the bandages were peeled away to reveal my brand-new fleshy stump, the nurse washing my wounds let out a small cry of amusement. Where once my beloved Liverpool FC tattoo had read “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, the motto – the famous rallying cry of the Reds – had taken on a new meaning altogether.
The doc had accidentally erased the word “Alone”. I was now the proud owner of half a leg and a tattoo that declared “You’ll Never Walk”.
But I would walk again – and I would do so much more than that.
After my amputation I began running with my Labrador Oppo. We would race across Crosby Beach and I’d feel the wind in my hair. I began to compete in 10k runs and half-marathons. I learnt that the world record for a single-leg amputee over 10k was 37:53 so I ran it in 37:17 in front of a crowd of hundreds of supporters in my home town.
I’ve since scaled mountains and learnt to surf, ski and abseil. In 2014 I claimed two gold medals at Prince Harry’s Invictus Games too.
Months later, with the help of a sperm donor, my girlfriend had IVF treatment and we welcomed our daughter Alba into the world. When I heard my daughter cry for the first time all the pain and the suffering in my life was finally washed away.
You’ll Never Walk by Andy Grant, published by deCoubertin Books (£15.99), is available in bookshops now.