Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Day #1 With My Prosthetic

Since I have been so detailed in sharing my journey this far, I feel it is only right to chronicle this new journey with my prosthetic leg. I will try my best to update you daily for the first couple of weeks to let you know how I am making progress.


I picked up my leg yesterday and was so excited about it. I walked with it for over an hour at the Dr's office. He had given me a schedule for how often I am to wear the leg daily. I had to take it off before I left the office last night and so we threw it in the back seat, went out to celebrate and run some errands then headed home.

Once home, I put on some jeans I picked up at Sams-without even trying on and they fit! And I put the leg on of course. I walked around for a little while and decided I was tired and needed to put it away for the rest of the day. Dr. Jack told me that I would be really sore. That I would be working muscles over the next few weeks that I didn't even know I had. Boy was he right! By the time I got in bed last night I felt like I had had one hard workout.

I am supposed to wear the leg for two hours today, but break it up into one hour increments. Then I increase the time by half an hour everyday. Therefore, tomorrow I will have it on for 1 1/2 hour increments. 

When I woke up this morning I was still really sore, so I decided to take it easy and put the leg on later in the day. I took it really easy because I was SO sore. Good grief. Anyway, I got really excited when I laid out clothes to wear. Pants, a pair of socks and a pair of shoes just brought tears to my eyes. Happy tears :)

Then I spent about 15 minutes trying to get A shoe on my left foot. I gave up and went to find another shoe that took about five minutes to put on it. Now, getting this leg on is somewhat similar to wrestling an octopus. I have to put my jeans on the left leg first, pull the leg over to me, try to get my right leg in the pants-making sure to put the right leg in the right pant leg-tricker than it may seem- and then get in the socket and try to pull everything together. I think it took about 30 minutes to do all that. By the time I got it on I was out of breath, uncomfortable and wanted to take it off and throw it down. I'm being honest here. I left it on though and finished getting ready then headed out of the house to pick up Jarred and run errands.

Ok, maybe running errands on day number one was not my best idea. But I promise I really didn't do THAT much. I just picked Jarred up from the bus stop, went to the bank, went to KMart and then stopped by a friends house. I think it was about 3:00pm when I put the leg on and then about 4:40pm when I took it off.... So yeah.... I wore it a little too long. I was in mid-sentence at my friends house when I stopped and said "Ive gotta go home and take this leg off!" I think I did a combination of hopping, dragging and walking to my car. I couldn't get home fast enough. I was ready to get that thing off it hurt so badly. I think part of the problem though is that I am not getting into the socket correctly. I didn't feel like it was fitting correctly or that I was in there all the way.

Now I am laying on my couch typing you lamenting the fact that I have to get up and cook. I really want to go to church tonight as well. I really want to put my leg on and wear it to church. But I really don't want to put my leg on. But I have to.

So yeah.... I know that this is supposed to be big and exciting and all those wonderful things and maybe I feel about an iota of that right now. Mostly though, I feel like that leg is hard to walk with and extremely uncomfortable. I really liked hopping around and have grown accustomed to things the way they are. The ease that I have getting here and there. Now this is just another adjustment. I know that I will get there. It is just not going to be easy. I can all ready see that there's going to be a lot of hard work, tears and determination in my future.

I'm hoping that before long this will become second nature to me. Today though, I really don't like that leg.

4 comments:

  1. You'll grow to love that leg and be walking all over spain in June!:). I love you!!!!

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  2. I love your new blog. Love your precious heart. and I know very soon (I also know soon is relative) we will all love your leg. Right now I'll cheer you on. You can do this!!! You can. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you!!! You go, girl. xoxo lisa

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  3. You can do it! I'm so proud of you! You will conquer this just as Christ conquered death for you...love ya!

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  4. I am so happy to hear you got your leg! I know it's rough and a big adjustment, but you didn't start hopping around like a pro right away either. I will be praying the Lord will strengthen you and help you. What an exciting future is ahead of you!!! Love ya!

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