Skip to main content

It's not my first summer wearing a ski boot

A summer gathering on Drummond Island.
Post-cocktail hour.


After the most recent episode of grace in action, I scoured my memory for the details of my previous broken foot. For the life of me, I couldn't remember if I'd broken the right or the left or the year it happened. Having also sprained an ankle, two things are fairly obvious right now (more obvious than the black cast adorning my right foot). One, I need to write more so that I have written proof on which to rely since my memory is clearly not what it should be. (More on that later!) And second, I am a first-class, gold-medal earning (if there were such a thing), klutz. Klutzy Kathleen. Even before MS was part of my daily life, I couldn't walk and chew gum without a potential disaster.

 After unearthing the picture above, I discovered it was my left foot. An adorable nearly two-year-old Delaney is partially camouflaging the evidence of the black cast/boot. And it was July or August because we would spend a weekend there every summer with the Andary's, Waldenmeyer's and Allen's. This will be my second summer in a hot, black ski boot. Oh boy!

 It's ironic, perhaps, that I'd just gotten the results from my first-ever bone density test in April. It was the first medical test I passed on the first try. I mean, I was ecstatic! After the dreaded physical in February and the resulting referrals for tests and more tests, it was great news to learn I had strong bones.

 My take away for today, if my bones had been bad I could have broken a leg or had a more severe break. And, having had MS I'm fully prepared with a garage full of walking aids to assist my recovery.

Comments

Post a Comment

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

The meaning of success and how

I sat down to write today about being cast/boot free. It is a joy to be back to my 'normal' state of mobility - which is to say that I stumble and totter like a drunken sailor but at least now I'm not wearing a big black boot. Ahoy matey! But instead, I came across the above quote and being easily distracted, I began to think about it instead. (Heck, I'm tired of the damn cast and don't want to waste anymore time thinking or writing about it anyway.) It's a quote my Aunt Bonnie first introduced me too when I graduated from high school and it's come on my radar many times since then, but today for some reason it has given me pause. I laugh often, to be sure. I'm like the uncle in Mary Poppins - I love to laugh. I surround myself with people that make me smile and laugh and am grateful for a husband that still knows how to make me laugh. I'm not to sure about winning the respect of intelligent people, though. I tend to think out of the box and...
Post a Comment
Read more

The "I'll Nevers" of growing older

  Years ago as a freelance writer, I submitted an essay entitled "The I'll Nevers of Parenting". It was a list, mostly, of things I had said prior to having children and the crow I was then eating because of the stupidity of the claims. You know little pearls of 'wisdom' that only someone who hasn't experienced the joys of  parenting could utter, like: I will never yell at my child in public or I will never let my child eat dinner in front of the television or my children will never stay up past 9 pm. I yelled at my children (usually when we were both tired and totally irrational!) in public. One time, as we were in the drop off lane at school with a long line of cars behind us, the boys hoped out of the car but Delaney was insisting on something that for the life of me I cannot recall and I was insisting that she get out of the van. We crept along, van door still open, until I got to the end of the line and yelled at the top of my voice, "Delaney get the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sick in St. Louis and Earthquakes in Michigan. What?

A 4.2 magnitude earthquake rattled our home a few weeks ago. Now if we lived in California (or even Oklahoma!) that would be almost commonplace but we live in Michigan where an earthquake is earth shattering, not because of the resulting damage (aside from a few funny Facebook pictures of toppled lawn furniture, I didn't witness any damage) but because earthquakes in Michigan almost never happen. Or at least ones that are felt by the average person. Or even me!  That earthquake was just the beginning of strange events, for this not-so-average person.  The day after Michigan shook, John and I went to St. Louis to see Delaney's end of freshman year performance.  One of the last times John had been to St. Louis together, was in August when he'd had his heart attack. We had dropped our daughter and a van full of belongings in sweltering heat and humidity. It was the first day of a planned two-day orientation and and the following day was the official good bye. John hadn...
Post a Comment
Read more