I be stylin’! (Not. Oh, sooo NOT!)

So it seems that last month I was using my knee walker as a crutch (so to speak), which prompted my meanie doctor to force me to give it up so I’d put more weight on my foot. I was not happy to give up my knee walker because it made living with a broken ankle bearable. I could get around incredibly quickly, use my hands, and carry stuff from place to place in the handy-dandy basket. Once my knee-walker was gone, I was forced to use crutches to get around. While I hated the crutches, I had no choice but to use them. Fortunately my cool storm trooper boot provided my foot comfort and security and I was pretty mobile using both together. I dreaded the day when the powers that be would mandate that I give up the boot, but I assumed it was still a few weeks off. Wrong. I went back to Harborview’s Foot and Ankle Clinic today, expecting to be told that it was time to give up the crutches and walk using just the boot. But nooooooo… Instead, Dr. Benirschke the meanie, insisted that I lose the boot and keep the crutches! Nooooo! Say it isn’t so! But it is. Over the next week or so, I need to phase from wearing the boot all the time, to wearing it less and less and wearing – gasp!! – SHOES more and more. Shoes? But not a single shoe in my closet fits my still-swollen left foot! How on earth will I transition out of my sweet, secure boot? After my medical appointment, Tom and I went to our favorite Mongolian Barbeque, where I got this fortune: Uh – huh. Wonders! You want to see my new look? Well, there’s this corset-looking brace gizmo (very Little House on the Prairie, isn’t it?) that gets laced up and strapped around my foot and goes inside my shoes. Are you wondering where all those straps go? Yeah, me too! They get pulled and wrapped and tightened around my foot, like this: And then… (Now don’t laugh. Really, it’s been a tough year and a tough week, so be nice.) Over that lace-brace (which my insurance company will pay a hundred frikken dollars for!), I put on this: You better believe I need that wide width! Getting the shoe on my foot was excruciating, but I did it. (That wide gap between shoe hemispheres reminds me of my rectus abdominus muscle after my twin pregnancy!) So yeah, this is my new look that, according to my fortune, will “do wonders”: Thank goodness for wide sizes and long, stretchy laces! I’d like to tell you how I feel about all this, but I really don’t know how I feel about it yet. Yes, I know that I need to progressively get back on my feet (so to speak) and that it won’t be comfortable to get there. And yes, I know that the pain, even when it’s in my foot, is actually more in my head. And yes, I know that fear and stress play a big role in how well -- or poorly -- one heals. (Stress? By the time I stopped work in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday morning, I’d already put in 31 hours!) I know all that. But I still miss my trusty knee walker… and I will miss wearing my secure storm trooper boot. I know what you’re thinking. “Yeah, and in a few months you’ll say how much you miss your old lady sneaker.” No way! That, I will NOT do!