These
are the continuing adventures of a Swedish immigrant during her first
year as an American. She boldly went where she'd never gone
before...please come along on Adventures
in America.
Last
hip story, I promise. It's just that I'm writing about one year in
my life, and a 1/3 of it was in that darn cast...but I feel like I
can't leave you with me still immobilized. Closure and all that
stuff.
I
can't remember the exact date they cut me out of my prison, but it
was in March. Silly me had expected instant relief and instant
return to normality. Not so fast. What I saw when they removed the
cast shocked me. My legs were covered in what looked like wax. Dead
skin. It would take a LOT of scrubbing to get it off.
The
other big surprise was that the knee which hadn't bent in four
months, didn't really want to bend without severe pain. I had to be
really careful and move it slowly, and just a little more each day.
But oh the joy and relief of being able to take a bath! (Even if
there was a layer of dead skin floating on top of the water when I
was done...sorry, reality...) I could also scratch anything I needed
to. Oh the contraptions Aunt Risky tried to make me to get inside
the cast to scratch...partially successful, but you know how ALMOST
getting to scratch an itch is almost worse than not getting to
scratch it at all.
So
to wrap this up: I spent 6 weeks on crutches, then a month feeling
great and walking around, and RUNNING, and life felt normal.
Then
the pins came out. 8 weeks of crutches. It was the most
uncomfortable time. I felt so fragile – like if I moved wrong I
was going to break it all over again. Then I was free. Big scar.
Lots of life to contemplate, but the big ordeal was OVER.
I
went on to become a gymnast, a long distance runner, a mountain
biker, I climbed a 14er (for you non-Colorado folks, that's a
mountain over 14,o00 feet. It's a status symbol to summit one.
Kinda a rite of passage to be a “real” Coloradan). I RECOVERED.
