Sylvia's Journal

I lucked out and landed on a beautiful sunny day in Boston. A day later we were in the middle of a snowstorm with traffic, on land and in the air, a complete mess.

We drove, in the snowstorm, to Boston for my three month post-operative appointment. “You are fully fused,” exclaimed the orthopede, looking at my latest X-ray, “congratulations!” of course these congratulations were also for himself as he did a good job screwing the bones together and I, or rather my bones, did a good job fusing. We are all a bit surprised about the amount of flexibility I still have in my ankle. Only in the pointing and flexing of my toes, when done together with my right foot, does the fusion reveal itself.

We ignored the worsening snowstorm and had a nice French lunch (onion soup, pissaladier, croque monsieur) in Chestnut Hill. Of course by the time we left the restaurant the storm blew over our heads which made for a long trip home, three hours at a snail’s pace.

We killed the time listening to the adventures of the Count of Monte Cristo until I discovered Waze, a social networking/navigation app. I raked up several 100 brownie points for Axel as I reported on this and then that hazard or bunching up on the road, including a real car fire near Peabody; very exciting for us but not so for the owner of the car that went up in flames.

I am starting physical therapy tomorrow for the next 4 to 6 weeks. I am to wean myself out of the orthopedic boot in the next few days. I already started liberating my foot from the boot in Kabul and now have the doctor’s permission to do more of that. Except I need to wear an air brace when I do that, a small cushioned contraption that fits within a sturdy shoe. Yeah, I can wear a shoe again!