Going Slowly

This one's for you, Katharine. It's no novel, but it'll do for now.

I'm a week removed from my ankle surgery. I'm not in pain anymore. In fact, my biggest complaint is that the boot I have to wear makes my toes go numb. I am my own worst enemy because I am klutzy by nature, so I fall on or kick something with my bad foot almost daily. I've borrowed the knee walker from my father-in-law again to help me be more self-sufficient (and fall less). Using this allows me to stand on my good leg while supporting my bad foot and keep my hands free to, say, make a sandwich.

I occupy three spaces: the bed, the toilet, and my computer chair. Occasionally, I substitute the recliner for my bed, but for short periods of time. I finally showered last night. Judge if you will, but it wasn't the "come to Jesus" experience I was hoping for. My foot is still yellow from all the iodine disinfectant the surgeon used, but my hair is clean and my skin is soft. You try sitting on a chair in your tub and keep your foot on the back wall so it'll stay dry and tell me how glorious it is.

I haven't had as many people come by as I'd hoped, but the help I've had has been capital-F-abulous. They've brought me Starbucks and chocolate and Bananas Fosters French Toast and cleaned my house so I'd sit still (I love when people are as clean-freaky as I am, or can at least pretend to be for a short while). They've taken my son out to breakfast and taught him to feed ducks at the pond. They've brought me fried chicken and chauffeured my son to and from daycare and rocked him to sleep at night. I've been a bit lonely on the days that no one has come, but it's kind of nice because I used to be alone a lot as a child and I kind of miss it.


It takes me for-ev-er to do anything. Using the crutches makes it faster to get from point A to point B, but I can't carry anything and it winds me (lifting 200+ pounds with every step would wind you, too. Perhaps, when this is all over, I'll have disproportionately buff arms...no, wait, I'm back. I was lost in buff-arm land for a second. Apologies.). I've managed to use the knee walker to my advantage in terms of taking things, like a drink, from one place to another. I have strategically placed stable, flat surfaces throughout my house so I can take a cup, roll to the edge of the kitchen and place the cup on the microwave cart, then move the walker the step up into my living room while using one crutch that I've left against the wall to help support me, lean back far enough to reach the and roll it to the TV tray I've put next to the recliner (if that's my destination, then huzzah!) OR, I roll it to the edge of the living room where there is a step down into the foyer and at THIS point I stop and reach the cup around the corner to the hutch where I gently place it so that I can roll the walker down the step, pick up the cup, roll it over to my desk, where I set it down and dismount the walker in such a fashion that I only place body weight on my good foot and plant my rear in my computer chair. My house is not very big - it's 600 sq. ft., total - and this is a lot of effort just to read my blogs while drinking a cup of coffee. But, priorities and all that. It's more complicated when I'm trying to eat a meal that requires a plate, so I've taken to tossing whatever food I want into a large Tupperware container and then putting the whole thing into a plastic grocery bag that I can hang on the handle of my walker.

It's more frustrating if I find that my cell phone is going off in the other room, and where I'd normally make two large strides to fetch it now it's a major production involving the walker, or crutches, or both.
What I am truly enjoying about this whole thing is the amount of Food Network Television I've been able to watch. It's like daytime-TV crack.

So, in trying to get the melancholy out of my system, I've left out the fact that I feel a lot better. I'm getting some random things completed that I'd never have time to do otherwise, and seriously, for the first time in the past 3 months my foot doesn't hurt, which is awesome. I'm doing well, and taking it easy, Katie-style.