On Her Own Two Feet

I visited Beth this week on a beautiful sunny morning. She got up to greet me and walked across her living room--in two running shoes. YES! The doc took her out of the boot-cast, and she is on her own recognizance. For those of you with children: remember how, as your kids grew, you moved on from all the contraptions? A methodical letting go of the bouncy seat, the high chair, the stroller, the crib, the car seat, etc.? It feels a bit like that with Beth--each week she discards something else no longer needed on her way back to her own freedom. She said at first her knee and calf felt strange, almost like they didn't belong to her, and she had to get used to bending her foot again.

In other great news, she saw the surgeon who did her ankle and her clavicle and he took numerous x-rays and then told her she could expect a full recovery. Hallelujah! He said he can't often say that about someone as beat up as she was, but that her surgeries were healing beautifully. However, her cervical fracture (C6) still hasn't healed, so she is in the collar for another five weeks. She went to the trauma doc the next day and he predicted roughly 2-3 months before she is fully recovered, with all the ligament and tissue damage she sustained. She has had seven CT scans in the last month, so he didn't want to do another one at this point, but will do one in January to get a look at her lung.

In terms of pain control, Beth's goal is to be totally off the morphine in four weeks and then to scale back the Vicodin as needed after that. She still has a lot of pain on her left side, mostly at the chest tube site. PT started this week and the therapist did some work on her ankle, which has already started to improve it. She walked for an hour yesterday as a result. She is excited to have exercises to do (at last! some action!) to help along her healing. Her scapula is completely frozen in place, so that will need some attention down the line.

What else? She and Matt are about to undergo an entire kitchen gut and re-do, as they had been planning to do over the holiday break. Matt is contractor, cupboard hanger, tile guy, electrician, and general all-around laborer on that job, and Beth will relocate for a bit. And it's her birthday on Saturday; sending wishes that this next year of her life is full of light, love, and great adventures--but ones that don't include any helicopter rides unless they're part of the fun!