Today I have some exciting news. It’s news that I never anticipated eight years ago when starting Sifter, but it’s news I’m excited to share nonetheless. Sifter has a new home. JD Graffam, already a caretaker for a handful of wonderful products, will be taking over from here.

If you’re a Sifter customer, rest assured that you’re in good hands. Choosing who we sold to was a very big deal for us. It wasn’t about selling the business so much as it was about finding someone else to carry the torch. If you’re not a Sifter customer, there’s never been a better time to get onboard.

Through all of the process, I cared deeply about finding a home for Sifter that I could genuinely feel good about. It had to go to the right team that customers could count on to be good stewards. Thanks to an introduction to JD by good friend, Carl Smith, we found that team. I’d even argue that Sifter is in better hands now. JD has the track record of taking great care of products and their customers. So I couldn’t be more confident in Sifter’s future or more excited to pass the torch.

Once the new team is completely familiar with Sifter, I’ll eventually be phased out, but in the meantime, I’m here to help make sure the transition is as seamless as possible for everyone. I may not be shipping any more code, but I’ll still be helping any time they need it.

So why sell Sifter? And what’s next?

The last couple years have been far more challenging than I would have liked. Nine surgeries, a lot of physical therapy, and adding another child to the family have changed a lot for us. Add an impending below-knee amputation, and I’m in a very different place.

During all of this, Sifter kept truckin’, but I felt that I wasn’t doing a good enough job. I believed that if I could just make it through, I’d be able to pick up the pace, but my priorities had changed. I love creating software, but there’s a big difference between creating software and running a business. With everything that’s changed, I decided it was best to step back from running a business.

I’m not going far, though. I’ve joined my friends at Wildbit where I’ll be helping out with all sorts of things related to Beanstalk, Postmark, and DeployBot. But that’s another story.

The most uncomfortable thing about an elective amputation is that it’s elective. Mountain biking has been a blessing. It’s enabled me to be active again for the first time since this started over two years ago. However, when I’m active, and the pain isn’t there, neither is the constant reminder of why amputation makes sense.

I’ve done ten miles on my mountain bike each of the last two mornings. During those rides, other than times I get off to walk after failing to make it up a steep climb, the pain doesn’t haunt me. As a result, I have to regularly remind myself what’s so wrong with my foot that it has to go. I know it’s the right decision, but the days with less pain breed doubt.

Memories of pain and limitations on the bad days are fleeting. The days where the pain distracts me from my family. The days where I focus minimizing my pain rather than maximizing our joy. Even with things as simple as going to the park, every step hurts. Even a simple walk around the block is miserable. Forget outdoor hiking or trips to amusement parks. And that doesn’t even touch on the times I’ve had to say no to my family for small things because standing or walking even a few steps is just too much. Those memories fade quickly. It takes effort to hold onto them.

I’m confident about the decision. But the good days crack the door ever so slightly to let doubt try to sneak in. Those are the worst days. For now, it’s the bad days that I look forward to. They’re the days that help me remember why I’m doing this.

About two and a half years ago, recovery from a relatively minor surgery went a little bad. Eight surgeries and year and a half after that I was seriously considering a below-knee amputation. After several discussions with multiple surgeons, physical therapists, amputees, and prosthetists, I agreed to try an ankle fusion first. I wasn’t excited about it, but it made sense. That ankle fusion happened about nine months ago. It helped. But nowhere near enough.

If you’re not familiar with ankle fusions, it’s a virtual guarantee that running or jumping off of that leg again is out of the question. An ankle fusion can reduce pain, but only at the cost of giving up a lot of activities. As someone who deeply loves playing basketball, that was a tough pill to swallow. I thought maybe some other activities could replace it. So far, biking has been the only activity that doesn’t cause unbearable pain, and mountain biking has become my mainstay for fitness. Unfortunately, that’s limited by weather and won’t be enough by itself. Earlier this week I tried snowboarding again for the first time since my ankle fusion. The pain made it impossible to enjoy. Going into it, I had a feeling, but that sealed the deal. If I can’t do these activities on my own, I won’t be able to keep up with the girls as they grow up. (Barring any miracles in the coming months, of coure.)

So barring that miracle, I’m again moving towards have my left leg amputated below the knee in the coming months. This is ultimately a fairly elective decision. I could choose to live with the moderate pain on a day-to-day basis if all I did was walk short distances on flat surfaces, but I’d never be able to truly be active again. Given the semi-elective nature of it, it feels like most surgeons are hesitant to fully support the decision. I can appreciate that, but with two young daughters and a wonderful wife who deserves all the help I can possibly provide, settling with the pain would prevent me from enjoying life and being everything I can be for them. I’m not sure I could live with that. Of course, amputation carries its own risks, but it would really be the first “standard” surgery I’ve had since this all began.

As extreme as amputation sounds, if everything goes well, it will actually be an upgrade for me in terms of functionality and pain relief. I’d lose my proprioception, which is a considerable sacrifice, but the net improvement should be good. As it stands, I already don’t have any ankle movement. But I still have plenty of pain. With a prosthetic, the chances of the pain going away are very high. There is a very realistic chance of phantom pain, but we’ll be doing everything possible to mitigate that. So with a prosthetic, I should gain functionality and decrease pain.

This week, I’ll meet with some surgeons and another prosthetist to start working out the details and making sure that all reasonable options are exhausted. With Spring and nice weather coming up, a few other significant life events, and knowing that the recovery will take at least six months, it’s looking like the timing will work out to a late April date for the amputation. That gives me plenty of time to exhaust all of the remaining long-shot options.

During my journey of the last couple of years, I’ve had a hard time finding stories of people in similar situations, and the few stories I have found and people who I’ve been able to speak with about amputation in general have been so incredibly helpful. In particular, Ian Warshak, who is a double below-knee amptuee and recently completed an eight-day round trip hike to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro, has been an enormous source inspiration and reassurance that life doesn’t “end” after an amputation.

In addition to those conversations, reading Stronger by Jeff Bauman, On My Own Two Feet by Amy Purdy, and Unthinkable by Scott Rigsby, the first double-leg amputee to ever cross the finish line in the Ironman Triathlon, were all incredible stories that helped me understand the realities of amputation as well as the confidence that an amputation can improve one’s life. (No guarantees, of course.)

I can only hope sharing this process could help anyone else that may be facing a similar decision. So I’ll do my best to document and share all of the ups and downs in the coming months and years in case it can help someone else the way all of these stories helped me.

It’s been almost two years since my flap surgery and about six months since my ankle fusion. The fusion itself was technically a success. The bones fused, and my foot is now in a better position. The pain, however, is as present as ever. I’m able to walk a mile, sometimes close to two on a good day, but I pay for it with pain afterwards. Pain is my constant companion and influences every decision involving more than a few steps. Ankle pain has radiated outward into knee pain and back pain from a broken gait. I don’t much like where that leads.

The pain isn’t unbearable, but it’s enough to sap the joy out of most activities. I’d rather not lean on pain killers, so short walks, when my foot can handle it, or riding a stationary bike, is about all I can do. It’s too early to give up hope entirely, but it’s far enough along that amputation is increasingly a regular and realistic topic of discussion. When every step is painful, amputation sounds like an almost thrilling alternative.

The pain sucks, but the real struggle is uncertainty. Will it improve enough? How long do we wait? How will we know? Not being able to go run and play with the girls hurts almost as much as the pain that prevents it. They grow up so fast, and I truly fear missing out on far too many moments.

I’m comfortable with amputation, but after putting it off this long and giving a fusion a shot, jumping the gun seems a bit rash. There’s naturally a bit of selection bias, but I have yet to hear a story of elective amputation where the individual didn’t wish they had done it sooner.

My thinking lately is that it’s time to at least start talking to surgeons and prosthetists again. Since there’s no rush, and the holidays are coming up, that should mean a couple of months of appointments, research, and careful decision making. More than enough time for this foot to give us an idea of what it has planned. But who really knows. We’ll see.

A few weeks back, I snowboarded for the first time in two years. My left ankle was weak and in pain but nothing a few pain killers couldn’t bring to tolerable levels. If you told me that was the best I could ever hope for, I’d probably be done with snowboarding, but after being hobbled for two years, it felt pretty good to move again.

Tomorrow I’m having the surgery that I swore I didn’t want. If all goes well, it could be the last ankle surgery I need. The likelihood of a clinical success is pretty good. That is, the pain will go away. The likelihood of an emotional success, however, is less encouraging. My chances of running and jumping again are slim-to-none. The doctors believe strongly in not amputating, but they aren’t as encouraging about my resulting functionality with a fusion.

As a lifelong athlete, the idea of an ankle fusion feels like accepting defeat. Like a team being down 20 in the 4th quarter and the coach pulls the starters. Only, in that situation, there’s eventually another game. In this case, it feels more like a new, very different chapter of life. The only relief is that I got a good three decades out of it first.

The upside is that if life with a fusion is unbearable, amputation is still an option. Given that I was already prepared to go that route, I doubt I would even be sad.

We’ll see. Here’s to cautious optimism.

For the last year, I’ve been on a part-time quest to find shoes that are comfortable given the circumstances of my foot. They need to have very soft soles to help absorb the impact that my ankle can’t. They need to be wide enough not to squeeze my now very sensitive forefoot. But they need to be tight enough that my good foot isn’t swimming in them. Among other challenges.

Including my two pairs of OOFOS sandals, I’ve bought 6 pairs of shoes in the last year searching for something I could wear every day. If it wasn’t for cold weather or a need for traction, I’d probably wear my OOFOS every day for the rest of my life.

But new shoes aren’t really the story. I also have some old shoes. A pair of basketball shoes. A pair of waterproof hiking/snowshoeing boots. Some dress shoes. For the last couple of years, they’ve sat in my closet unused. I guess I believed I’d still wear them someday.

Now they’re in a trash-bag on their way to the local donation center.

For some quick context to quantify the opinions I’ve gathered, we’re at 12 surgeons, 2 doctors of physical therapy, 2 prosthetic specialists, and 2 below-knee amputees. I’ve been very deliberate about this process. That’s the primary reason that it has taken so long.

Less than two months ago, I was fully prepared to amputate my left foot below the knee, and believe it or not, I was looking forward to it. Well, not looking forward to the surgery, but to removing limitations and regaining functionality. Amputation is still a possibility, and I’m more than prepared and willing to accept that outcome. The doctors, however, have convinced me to try a fusion before I go there since amputation is so permanent.

I’m not surprised that the amputation doctors pushed back. I had read and heard many similar stories through my research. And while hopeful about a fusion, I’m not exactly optimistic. I believe that it will be successful from a medical standpoint, but I’m not entirely sold that it will lead to a better quality of life than amputation in the context of my goals.

I sincerely hope that it can be my last surgery, but virtually every “Will I be able to…?” question directed at my doctors results in a less-than-inspiring response. They tell me stories of patients who are still “active,” but virtually nothing they’ve said is encouraging. About all I can get from doctors is a “You should be able to walk without pain.” So I’m primarily basing this decision for a fusion on the assumption that surgeons are all about under-promising and over-delivering.

At thirty-six, I’m not fooling myself. My body is already on its downward slide, and I know that from here on out, I’m waging war with my body to stay healthy and physically fit. Maybe walking without pain is enough to stay healthy, but I’m not sure. Either way, I know I’m going stir crazy without basketball and snowboarding.

More than that, though, I want to be able to run and play with my daughters as they grow up. Whether that’s sports, day-long mountain hikes, or anything really. With an ankle fusion, those options are dramatically reduced.

That’s the most difficult loss.

I’ve always had on-and-off back problems. Now, going on two years of limping, my broken gait has exacerbated them. Most days, my back now hurts more than my foot. All said, of the last few months, I’ve probably spent three weeks in bed due to my back. These days, the hope I cling to is one of a day without back pain.

I’m sick-to-my-stomach of telling Lauren and the girls that I can’t do something because of pain or other physical limitations. Cancelled trips. Staying home while they go do things. Half of the time, I go ahead and try ayways only to make things worse and re-injure myself. With a fusion, maybe I can say yes to a few more things, but for the rest of my life, I’ll be have to decline many more.

There is absolutely nothing harder through all of this than feeling like a weight around their necks. That feeling is self-inflicted as they are as loving as ever. No. More loving than ever. But it’s a real feeling nonetheless.

I spend a lot of my time now trying to actively focus on the positive things, and it helps most days. If I’m honest, we have been pretty lucky. However, as the future comes into focus, it’s more challenging.

During recovery, it was easy to hold onto dreams of what life will be like afterwards. It’s easy to focus on getting through it. Once you’re on the other side, though, reality sets in. For me, that has meant going from dreams of returning to basketball to merely hoping to be pain-free.

Best-case scenario, an ankle fusion ends all of my pain, and the only loss is some minor physical limitation. If I’m really lucky, maybe my gait returns to normal and my back problems dissipate. Worst-case scenario, it’s a three-to-six month pit stop on the way to amputation and removes any and every possible doubt that amputation is the right choice.

Somewhere in-between those best and worst-case scenarios is more concerning. That’s what scares me. The idea of choosing between settling on merely pain-free days or risking more for the hope of staying more active with fewer limitations.

Of course, with amputation, nothing is guaranteed either. It’s still a risk with plenty of opportunity for complications. So, barring continuing pain or fusion complications, this will all probably end with the fusion.

I wish I could say that I was optimistic, but right now, it feels more like settling for existence rather than pursuing dreams. I’m confident that feeling will pass. Soon there will be more good days than bad. But today, reality is settling in a bit.

And so I give away my shoes.

When I shared the news about considering amputation in light of my foot and ankle troubles from the last year, I failed to add some important context.

From the outside looking in, amputation sounds incredibly tragic. In the context of a healthy foot and ankle, it is. But for me, that ship sailed some time ago. For the last year and a half, my foot and ankle have only held me back. Prior to considering amputation, my prognosis wasn’t great. It wasn’t likely that I’d run again, and the chances of playing basketball or other impact sports were essentially zero.

However, thanks to science and modern prosthetics, amputation changes that. In a way, amputation would give me an opportunity to replace my current foot with a better foot. It will never be better than my original equipment of course, but it would be better than what I’m working with now.

It won’t be easy and, should we go down that path, there will be days where it will be incredibly tough. It will be challenging for both me and my family. But that’s what we’re already dealing with every day. I can’t walk a mile without debilitating pain, let alone run or jump. It would be great if we never had to consider this, but that’s just not the situation we’re in.

I won’t be choosing between a healthy foot and amputation. I’ll be choosing between lifelong limitations, pain, and cascading problems from a broken gait or having the opportunity to return to doing the things that I love. An opportunity to stay fit enough to keep pace with my kids and more helpful around the house.

Just going through this thought process has restored my hope that I will get back to a “normal” life again even if that normal is a bit different. I’d be lying if I said I’m not scared or that I haven’t had moments of depression, frustration, or anger. I have. Plenty of them. And I’m sure there will be plenty more.

But if there’s one thing a situation like this helps with, it’s perspective. Fixating on what’s already happened or feeling sorry for myself has been a huge waste of time. I still occasionally fall victim to it, but all that really matters at this point is gathering the information to make the best decision and prepare myself accordingly. In a way, once I got past the reality of this decision, it’s helped restore focus and give me a renewed optimism regardless of the outcome.

Encourage me. Support me. But please don’t feel sorry for me. If it does come to amputation, It’s not about losing a foot. It’s about gaining mobility and freedom from pain and limitations.

In the back of my mind through all of my foot and ankle troubles, amputation was never off the table. Now, after almost a year and a half of ankle surgeries and physical therapy, we’re actively discussing it. It’s not a foregone conclusion, but it’s looking increasingly likely.

Around the middle of October, my functional progress from physical therapy stalled out, and my therapists suggested talking to my doctors about surgical options that would get me back on track.

After talking to several doctors, my physical therapists, and some below-knee amputees, and spending hours doing my own research, amputation appears to be a valid option. This next week is full of appointments for additional tests and opinions that may change that outlook, but it doesn’t look likely.

The alternatives to amputation are to do nothing or get an ankle fusion. Neither option guarantees that the pain will go away or that the joint won’t have further problems with age. They only guarantee continued functional limitations. With the fusion, it’s even likely that further surgeries or amputation would be in the cards down the road, and recovering from additional surgeries ten to fifteen years older doesn’t sound fun.

That brings us to amputation. From my discussions and research, the most common regret with amputees is that they didn’t amputate earlier. In some cases, they spend well over a decade trying to salvage their limb before considering amputation. Even five years dominated by surgeries sounds terrible.

Over the last year and a half, the combination of surgeries and physical therapy have presented countless challenges. The idea of continuing to pursue surgeries that at their best will only reduce pain and not improve functionality feels like the equivalent of putting life on hold for a pipe dream.

With 3-year old and 2-month old daughters, being mobile enough to stay strong and healthy to keep up with them is a huge priority. (And the 2-month old is already almost as fast as me.) Just as important, my incredible wife doesn’t need to be repeatedly dealing with running our family by herself every time we face another surgery and the resulting physical therapy.

Maybe another option will present itself. Maybe it won’t. Here’s to hoping the next couple of weeks bring good news. Regardless, if there’s anything I’ve discovered facing this decision is that it’s difficult to find relevant stories of others’ experiences to shed light on the decision. Hopefully sharing this journey can help someone else going through a similarly challenging time. Better yet, hopefully sharing the story prevents someone from ever facing the same challenges.

One of the most nefarious patterns that seems to be increasingly common is companies that accept payment online but then don’t let you cancel service with the same ease. The companies that do it don’t seem to care. This is wrong. Full stop. If your company is doing this, you should stop.

It’s less secure.

Email can be faked, and phone calls can be socially-engineered. In many cases, they don’t even need to be socially engineered. Just call and make a request. Requiring someone to authenticate online and cancel will be at least as secure as the rest of the product. (Which is hopefully more secure than email and phone.)

It’s one-sided.

These companies invest the effort to streamline the process of you giving them something, but make no effort to streamline the process of discontinuing service. You can call, but call centers aren’t always open. So then you have to call on the companies terms rather than yours.

It’s heavy-handed.

Companies that do this are essentially hoping that you’re either too lazy to cancel or that they can talk you into sticking around. It’s about them, not you. That’s not a business that cares about customers.

It’s downright sleazy.

These companies are presuming that if you’ve decided to cancel, then they don’t have anything to lose and no longer need to treat you well.

Many of these services don’t email receipts/charge notifications.

The final disturbing trend is that many of these companies also tend to avoid sending charge notifications providing further evidence that many of these companies are hoping the charges go unnoticed. Of course, the transaction is always on your credit card statement, but many people do not review every charge on their credit card statement.

Unfortunately, after calling out some of the companies over the years when I encounter this behavior, I get the impression that most truly don’t care. If they did, they wouldn’t be doing it in the first place. However, some companies can and do change their ways. It would be fantastic to see credit card companies and payment processes require online cancelation, but there are logistical challenges that make that unlikely.

I’ve considered turning to chargebacks, but I don’t believe that’s the right solution either. I’m squarely on the fence with that approach, though as it makes the situation less one-sided. Unfortunately, canceling recurring charges with increasingly prevalent shared payment processing like Stripe, blocking one Stripe vendor blocks them all. So preventing future charges is difficult at best. You have to get a new card and number, and that feels like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Building a site to list and call out offenders sounds great, but it won’t help spread the word well enough. Few people will go review the list before choosing a service. Calling these companies out on Twitter is fleeting, but if enough people do it with enough frequency, perhaps the increased awareness will gain the attention of the offenders and drive some change. Perhaps.

For now, whenever I encounter these businesses, I plan on canceling immediately and calling them out on it via social media. It’s likely a drop in the bucket, but I’d like to think that collectively we can raise the standards of the tools and services that we’re all building and using.

When I set out to build software on my own, one of my biggest goals was to have more fun creating that software. I wanted to create a tool that others could enjoy, but, more than that, I wanted to have fun while I did it.

It has been fun. But somewhere along the way, the fun faded just enough. Then it turned into responsibility. The urgent overtook the important. I started playing it safe. This didn’t happen all at once, of course. It never does. It was an almost imperceptible advance.

Personal responsibility increased. Buying a house. Getting married. Having kids. All the things that make you think more about financial planning and security.

More people were using Sifter. That meant more people affected by our decisions. (And more people affected by any downtime to boot.) Even the smallest changes could hurt their productivity. I second-guessed too many ideas because of these fears.

Then there was things like scaling, security, upgrades, and operations to chip away at the fun too.

In hindsight, it’s obvious. I let the fear take over. I’m working on a course correction, but that’s not important right now.

What matters to me right now is that you don’t make that same mistake when you’re knocked around by the day-to-day challenges of creating software.

If you dream of creating better software for people and having fun doing it, then do it. Know that it’s going to be hard work. Know that you might have to do some things that are less than fun. Just make a point to never stop trying to have fun with it. Invest in processes and tools that make you have fun with it.

Don’t let that fear chip away at the fun. Unhappy people create unhappy products. The world has enough of those already.

The world needs more good news. So here’s my contribution. A year ago today, I had a surgery. The surgery went well. Recovery didn’t. In the time since, I’ve had 7 more surgeries, spent about 6 months in bed most of the day, 3.5 weeks in the hospital, and done about 40-50 physical therapy sessions. I’ll probably have another 50-100 before I plateau. My doctors are all impressed by what I’m capable of doing, and one even candidly said that I’m already way past the best that she had thought I’d ever be able to achieve without surgery.

Until recently, I’ve only shown people pictures if they explicitly asked, because, well, there was a huge hole in the top of my foot, and not everyone is good with that kind of thing. A year feels like a good time for a checkpoint. The large piece of tissue on my left foot is a free flap from my thigh. It’s covering up what used to be a hole in my foot where you could see tendons. And bone. It’s significantly better these days.

(The photo’s really not bad, but I didn’t want to force folks to look at a picture of my feet, so if you’re curious here’s what my foot currently looks like.)

Along with my foot healing, good things are happening. We’re able to go out and eat. We’ve gone to the zoo. (I had to rent a motorized scooter, but still.) We get to go to the park again regularly. I can even go swimming now and am strong enough to toss Bella in the air. We can “dance” around the living room. And, of course, we’re expecting Bella’s little sister in October. Things are returning to normal, and, in some ways, even better than normal.

A year in, and word on the street is that it will be this time next year before I’m as good as I’m going to get. Physical therapy has worked wonders, and I can walk. But I’m not out of the woods yet. The latest prognosis is that I might get by without any more significant surgeries. But I’ve still lost two tendons, and the doctors aren’t very encouraging about my chances of playing basketball again. Snowboarding is still a good possibility, though. Maybe as soon as this season. (And despite the lack of encouragement, I’m not giving up on basketball just yet either.)

For the most part, I’m thankful, but I’m not going to lie and say that it’s always easy. Every day I encounter something that I want to do but physically can’t. These days, though, those things are fewer. I’m healing, and progress is good. Things have changed. It’s tough, but these days, progress is outweighing setbacks. I suppose that’s what really matters.