One-footed

    It is now two weeks after my foot surgery. Two down, ten to go! 

    I spent the first few days at the home of my podiatrist, who is a friend I have skied with for years. How lucky could I get? I was in good hands for those crucial few days!

    Then my son drove down from Washington to help me transition to one-footed life at my house. He rearranged furniture, figured out the shower, and did a hundred other things to make it easier for me to hop through the house on a walker. (The bandaged foot was strictly non-weight-bearing.) He replaced the damaged bathroom sink, unclogged the kitchen sink, and brought a fir tree in from the woods, set it up, and strung it with lights so I could decorate it. (The ornaments hang only as high as the branches I could reach from a chair.) Before he left for home, he chopped kindling and filled my wood bin. 

    So I am doing fine. I have even kind of enjoyed the challenge of figuring things out—how to build a fire in the stove, how to sweep the floor from a chair. Friends have rallied to my cause. They have come to visit, brought dinners, picked up my groceries, read poetry with me, and brought wine. 

    Yesterday a friend drove me to my doctor's appointment. The doctor was so pleased the X-rays and the look of the foot that he has allowed me to walk in a boot that keeps my toes off the ground!

My heel responded with a surprised twinge when it touched the floor for the first time. 

    It is thrilling to be one step closer to the end of the twelve-week process. Maybe even, at my next doctor's appointment a month from now, I'll be allowed to drive.

    All this time I have been acutely aware of the three people I know who have had a leg amputated. At some point my doctor is going to say, "Excellent. Good job. Walk, ski, hike—you have your foot back." For my three friends, there was no going back. I am filled with admiration for their fortitude, and respect for the difficulties they have faced—and gratitude that my condition is temporary and that I have so many friends who have stepped in to help. 

    I move towards the New Year with that gratitude foremost, wishing for you the same fulfilling emotion and that you and all people, creatures, and plants of the world will know and happiness.