Taking "IT" For Granted - Part 2

So, pain was the first thing that I had to get through in losing control. Next came learning to walk again.

So, how hard is it to learn to walk again? You just put one foot in front of the other like you have always done, right? Wrong! There is so much to it when you have had your body, let alone your skeletal structure, drastically altered.

You feel like you should just be able to stand up and move like you have for years. However, you now have a foreign object inside of you. You have a hole where everyone else has a moving joint. You put weight on your "new" leg and it feels as though someone put a vice grip on you and tightened it so much that you have been rendered nearly incapacitated. This "new" leg doesn't move like it should.

Turned around at the door and heading back to the
hospital bed after a strenuous therapy day after surgery.

It takes every ounce of energy you have for the day just to get out of the hospital bed and make it to the doorway of your room. You have two (if not three, four or more) people surrounding you to make sure that you don't lose your balance and stumble or - God forbid - fall. Each one coaching you along the way, "Heal, toe. Straighten your foot. Take it slow. Breathe. You're doing great. Keep it up. You're looking so strong. Come on, you can do it. Just a little bit further."

So, these are really the things my therapists, nurses and family said every time I got out of the bed to learn to walk again. Despite the doctors original assessment, "You'll probably never walk again. At best you'll walk with a walker."

Learning to walk again was and has been a long process. Still to this day I have to think about "how" to walk. Place my heal down first, pivot to the toe and push off the ground only to do it all over again. But, I don't walk with a walker. I walk with a cane and a lot of times, I walk without a cane at all. Learning to walk again, a process of not taking it for granted.