Comedian With Amputated Leg Wants You to Play a Creative Game With Her Stump

It takes something special to laugh in the face of adversity.

Jackie Hagan, a comedian who lives in Manchester, England, had her leg amputated in the summer of 2013 due to a series of blood clots, BBC News reported.

After recovering from surgery, doctors told Hagan her life-threatening blood clots could come back at any moment. This news led her to embrace a new outlook on life and live each moment to the fullest.

She now performs a solo comedy show she wrote about the experience of losing her leg, called “Some People Have Too Many Legs.” It’s about using adversity to your advantage, according to her website.

“It’s a show about growing up and learning how to cope,” Hagan says in the YouTube video below. “And falling in love in awkward circumstances and loss and how sometimes you can get a lot from it. And it’s about how you can be optimistic and glittery without disposing of your wit or intellect.”

Nearly a year and a half since her amputation, she’s decorated her prosthetic with flamboyant colors and glitter.

“What do you do when your world is turned upside down?” reads a sentence that appears onscreen at the beginning of her show. “Keep laughing,” is the response.

After her leg healed, Hagan noticed that her stump had a funny-shaped scar on it that resembled a mouth. Soon, she began dressing it up as different celebrities and asking her social media followers on Twitter to guess who it was.

She’s dressed it up as The Hulk:

Celebrity Stumps! last one was.,THE HULK..@MindyLindars @swannie67 @Hulky23 if you come to a show i’ll buy you a pint pic.twitter.com/dV0b3kp1jC

— Hagan (@JackieHagan) March 12, 2015

Harry Potter:

Who is my stump dressed up as today? One for #worldbookday @bbcouch pic.twitter.com/DinZ37ECDR

— Hagan (@JackieHagan) March 5, 2015

A BBC talkshow host:

I’ll be on @BBCRadioWales today at 2.30pm, guess who I’m being interviewed by? Here’s a clue: pic.twitter.com/1t8XN1LIde

— Hagan (@JackieHagan) March 6, 2015

And more:

@TheLastLeg #isitok that I dress my stump up as celebrities? pic.twitter.com/o2iwnYSZnp

— Hagan (@JackieHagan) February 27, 2015

Hagan, who also lives with bipolar disorder, dyslexia and a few other conditions, feels that the experience of having her leg amputated has helped her mature and gain perspective on life, according to the BBC.

In her show, she lightheartedly pokes fun at many stereotypes and stigmas surrounding disability.

“I found out that soon as you become disabled you get called brave every five minutes for doing anything, for making some toast — and it is a bit offensive because it is patronizing,” Hagan says in the video below. “But I quite like compliments, so I’ve had to think. And my position is, ‘How dare you call me brave, but thanks for noticing. I am rather, aren’t I?’”

Check out more from Jackie Hagan by following her on Twitter.

Watch part of her show in the video below: 

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