Freedom! ish.

My physio set me a task last week. To raise my leg to the horizontal from a sitting position. He gave me a month. I did it in a week. (I haven’t figured out how to get it back down again, but that wasn’t part of deal.) Then the bugger went and cancelled the next appointment, so I can’t show off to him. Sarah failed to fake the correct amount of excitement, so I’m blogging about it instead. Unfortunately, I’m guessing that few other than myself would be hugely impressed by me being able to stick my leg out. So I shall just have to bathe in my own glory. It's about the only bathing I shall be doing. Things are clearly improving on the leg front, but as you can see from the picture, the closest I get to the bath is still having to spend some time every morning cleaning all the pins. I still can’t shower or bath the rest of me, so I remain a dab hand with a flannel. Other annoyances remain too. I can’t turn over in my sleep. I'm still on antibiotics. I can't bend down and pick up my son. But, and this is a huge step forward, I can now hobble as far as the tram stop, which means freedom!

It is a little unfortunate that my new-found ability to escape the confines of the front room has coincided with a temporary job that glues me to my computer. However, I am making time to escape, and it is good for the soul. I managed to re-acquaint myself with the delights of the Macdonald’s quarterpounder. I have perused the rails of gaudy shirts on offer at TKMaxx. I have bought a corduroy jacket that makes me look like an American novelist. All is well with the world.

There are unfortunate consequences to my public outings. There is nothing subtle about my right leg, and the pins are too long to fit under the most spectacular pair of flares. Even the ones on sale at TKMaxx. The skin grafts still seem to cause passers-by to wince involuntarily. But far more annoying than this, is the fact that a significant proportion of the Croydon populace feel that they have to pass comment. I suppose it is good that they feel they can. Maybe.

There are two varieties of commenting stranger. The first is reasonably harmless. They are the ones who simply want to know what happened, through sheer insatiable curiosity. In time, I will invent a suitable story about a shark attack to cope with this variety of comment. However, the second variety of chatty stranger is the sort who actually wants to tell you about their own woes. My favourite so far, and there are quite a few to choose from, is the man who bounded up to me and went, “Snap!” “Oh,” I said, “have you had one of these frames?” “No, but I have terrible trouble with my knee…” Etc. Etc. I can only hope that the trouble was caused by somebody kneecapping him.

On the whole though, things are seriously looking up. I was even able to right myself after slipping on a piece of budget knitwear in Alders, so I know I’m ready to be let loose. The only other slight downside to my new ability to roam is the fact that I am getting blisters on my hands. I looked up ‘rowing blisters’ on Google to see if I could gain any insight into remedies, and discovered that you should let them harden into callouses. Which is frustrating, because I spent some time in the House of Fraser liberally applying free samples of Molton and Brown hand cream. Serves me right, I suppose.