Our littles would like to be in a younger body, but here we are. We are 57, almost 58 years old; we have a birthday later this month. Sally, our therapist, reminds us that our body has carried us through a lot. Our body survived childhood. Our body has enabled us to do every good thing in life that we have done. Our body deserves kindness and love.
Sometimes in therapy a little will pop to the surface and tell Sally "This body is wrong."
It's hard to feel like you're eight years old and stuck in a grown-up body that can't sit on the floor or run.
We had flat feet. Back problems and menopause made them worse. Our posterior tibial tendons stretched and tore. Our feet and ankles collapsed, and we could hardly walk. After a couple years of trying to get better with physical therapy, we had surgery. Seven weeks ago we had our right foot and ankle fixed. We went through two plaster splints, and then a purple cast. Our foot and ankle have been healing, and yesterday the purple cast was cut off. X-rays showed that the bone and tendon attachments are healed. Now we are wearing a velcro-attached inflatable walking boot. We can't walk yet. We are still using our motorized wheelchair. After a year of physical therapy, our right foot and ankle should be good. Then we'll have our left foot and ankle fixed.
When our ankles hurt, it brings back memories of being tied by our ankles. We have been having flashbacks of being hung by our ankles. Ankle pain means helplessness. Ankle pain means being tied with our arms and legs spread-eagled. Ankle pain means our body torn up the middle, slammed again and again. Ankle pain means betrayal. As our ankle heals, we have a chance to heal other things.
No comments:
Post a Comment