The Thrill and The Fear of Standing

   Good morning and welcome, I'm glad you dropped by. Last time I wrote about finally getting an appointment with Mahaffey Orthotics & Prosthetics. That was exciting and it was scary. What if they couldn't help us, what if we couldn't come up with the money to pay for it. Come to find our we didn't need to worry about the finance part - the Lord has taken care of that part and the folks at Mahaffey have been great in working with us. Those folks there are just wonderful people. 

  My greatest fear was what if I fell flat on my face or my buttocks. It had been 3 months, almost 4 months sense I had taken a step. Oh sure I had hopped and shuffled with my walker but that isn't really walking. Like a friend of mine who also has been going through this process said slide your foot and hope, it was actually a misspell but I think it is very appropriate. Using a walker with one full leg and a partial leg is definitely something that takes getting use, if you ever can. I was going to download a picture of walker, but for some reason my blogger program will not let me do so. Instead let me try and draw you a mental picture of it. The walker has 3 sides, a front bar, and two sidebars. The front bar basically hold the two adjustable sidebars in place, it also comes in handy to help get up sometimes. The two sidebars are where you adjust your height and it has the wheels or feet for moving. And let me tell you without the rest of my leg it can make balance really difficult. There have been a few times I thought I was about to wipe out.

   With me having to go to the orthopedic surgeon for regular check-ups and then going to Mahaffey for check ups we were making a trip down to Dumus and then the next week down to Amarillo. The Dumus trip is about an hour and twenty minutes and the Amarillo trip is about two and a half hour trip. So, lots of road time each week. Another praise, we had a sister church pay for most of our trips. 

   During this time I developed a small but very red sore on my stump so we made a special trip in to see our Orthopedic surgeon. Luckily all it was, was a noninfectious abscess that formed because of a missed stitch. A round of antibiotics and I was good to go, well almost. On my third visit to Mahaffey they said my stump was still retaining fluid and so they gave me a tighter shrinker to go over my original shrinker. Well, again I can't get my picture to print so picture a heavy cotton tube, that I put over my thinner hoe. That is what I am wearing now to keep my leg from swelling and forcing fluid back up my stump.

   It has been a big change in my life and that of my wife's but we both know that the Lord with us and this in His hands. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. NIV

See ya next time.