The pain would start early in the morning. It was intense, his left leg aching like one can’t imagine, a sharp, distinct sensation that was nearly unbearable. The pain was real, which might be difficult to imagine, because Brian Bott doesn’t have a left leg. Bott, now 51, had his leg amputated well above the knee in 2012 after surgery for Stage 4 bone cancer. Efforts to save the leg were unsuccessful because his body rejected multiple components of a reconstructed leg following chemotherapy and numerous infections. And that pain? “Some amputees experience phantom pains, which are basically very specific pains, on the amputated or missing body part,” Bott said. “The brain still registers pain, and therefore it is a very real pain as if that body part was still there.” Though most of his leg was gone, the pain persisted. So Bott, unable to sleep, had to do something, …