Sylvia's Journal

Friday, August 31, 2007.My cast went off yesterday. Out came a not too shriveled leg with actually some muscle tone left. I had not dared to hope this outcome of the visit, but the X-rays showed that my ankle break had healed quite nicely.

Alison accompanied me to the doctor who looked like he got right out of school (but so handsome said Alison, who has a special eye for this sort of thing). The first part of the visit was a little unnerving as he cut the cast with an electric tool that looked like a circular saw (and probably was a circular saw). The noise instantly transported me to the moment we were cut or sawed out of the plane and brought back all the fears I had then of being hurt by any of the extraction equipment. I started to sweat profusely and tensed up. It was good Alison was with me. She tried to distract me, massaged my shoulders and gave me periodic updates on how many inches were left. The cast was cut open on each side and then gently removed.

Now I have a black contraption that looks like a snow boarding boot. I can take it off whenever I want as long as I don’t move around without it. I can even start to put some weight on my right leg as I hobble around with my walker. I took my first bath in 7 weeks and this night I slept with my leg in its natural state. My foot’s nerve endings are not yet fully functioning and my toes still have the pins and needles feeling. The bottom of my foot feels like cardboard and of course the entire foot is very stiff. Thus the sleeping remains a little problematic and I am still resorting to the Tylenol with Benadryl to get a good night’s sleep.

My progress these last six weeks has been awesome and my body starts to look pretty normal without its black and purple bruises, scans, stitches, bumps and cast. However, it doesn’t quite feel normal between tenderness, stiffness and limited range of motion. So the next few weeks will be filled with physical and other therapies.

Yesterday we studied and tested out our new phone system while Alison did a million little household tasks. Tessa packed and mulled over what to take back to Canada and what not and Sita and Jim were gone the entire day packing up last loads in Amherst. Martin Imm came by to fix another set of things that had broken and I managed our appointments and re-arranged kitchen cabinets so that they contained, once more, the things we used to store there (and no more). I can find things again and made some discoveries in the process.

Susie Talbot gave our garden a good trim and clean up and we sat and watched her on that gorgeous late summer afternoon. Caroline Spang came by to say hello and we drank tea sitting between the raspberries (now gone) and the squash plants (still producing energetically). Ed and Helen brought a wonderful meal and we had a quite dinner with Tessa and Alison. Later Tessa’s friend Val came by to say goodbye. After that Tessa got to give Axel his last shower. It is all bittersweet and the departure looms large.

The bedtime ritual was enhanced this time by Alison’s rendering of Faye Dunaway in Little Big Man (?) as Axel was disrobing and put to bed, one last time, by Tessa. We hope and expect that when she returns from Canada later this year, he can do all this by himself.