Three Months Later


It's been just over three months since I had my right foot amputated. When it was first happening, I was very optimistic about the entire thing. I figured that I could get it taken care off, chopped off, and the road to walking again would be closer than it would be if I waited for the thing to heal. What I failed to realize was that it was no longer up to me, and my body to decide when I could walk again. Suddenly that decision rested in the hands of doctors, and insurance companies.

It has been three weeks since my residual limb was casted for a prosthetic foot. My prosthetist seemed to think that it wouldn't take very long for the doctor to sign off on my getting a fake foot, and the insurance okaying the foot. I believed that I would be walking fairly quickly. Unfortunately, I was wrong. After waiting nearly three weeks, I finally called the prosthetist office and asked what was going on. As it turned out, the doctor still hasn't signed off on me getting a foot yet. I'm not sure why. I know that the doctor has a busy life, and even the occasional golf course to hit, but how long does it take to sign some papers, and get me walking? Why can't he take a few moments in his busy day to get me walking again?

When I first lost my foot, the only thing that I could think about was standing next to Julia when Hope is born. Today we start the 36th week of pregnancy. Best case scenario is that Hope stays in the womb until 39 weeks. At this rate, I'm quickly losing any hope in actually being able to reach my one, and only goal. It is extremely discouraging. I only wanted this one little thing, and it doesn't seem plausible at this point. Most likely, I'll be sitting in a wheel-chair when my baby girl is done. I'll try and balance next to the bed, but it takes a lot out of me, having my left foot hold all of my body weight.

If the doctor manages to sign off on my new foot, and I get into right away, there is still a chance that I'll be standing there. And I will work harder than I ever have at anything in my life to make sure that I am. But I'm very pessimistic at this point. I just don't see it happening. I'm just hopeful that maybe the doctor will see to it in his heart to allow me to walk again, some day. Until then, I'll keep hobbling around with my walker, and pretend that it's not killing me inside to know that this is just another aspect of my life that new rests in the hands of doctors and insurance companies.

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