It feels out of control this morning. Not that it ever was in control, mind you.
I thought maybe I would be feeling a certain buoyancy with the funerals and the estate crap in the rear view, but instead, I have a curious sense of emptiness and dead air.
I would not have expected it. Monday had dawned with an early notation on the calendar. I had an appointment at Walter Reed, a sort of 1/3 progress assessment- and a deal with Baby Doc that if I arrived early for the appointment, she would get me seen expeditiously. My Guardian Ensign was otherwise occupied, and I have imposed enough on my friends and acquaintances for assistance, and looked out at the water pooled on the fresh black-top on the west side of Big Pink’s parking lot.
It was raining, of course, and while I had intended to drink a pot of Dazbog full-bodied Russian coffee before inserting the Bluesmobile into the morning rush, I thought the prospects of some bone-head pranging their auto was high. One act of motorized lunacy out there can act like the proverbial butterfly, and bring the commuting of the entire Metro Region to its knees. I wanted to get in and get out of the clinic. So I got on with it.
I poured a travel mug of the rich coffee, slipped a couple phones and the iPad into my green ammo-carrier and slung it St. Bernard-like around my neck. I picked up the crutches, and went out to the hall to meet my fate.
When I managed to wedge myself behind the wheel, I head the radio reports of sporadic lunacy on the I-66 corridor, and overturned trucks on I-95 coming north to the sprawl of the National Capital Region near the Occoquan River. The GW Parkway was placid enough going north, and the American Legion Bridge not as bad as it could be. But Wisconsin Avenue was a mess, and traffic crawled on board the Walter Reed complex.
Health Professionals and patients were strolling or rolling toward the medical complex from outlying billets and parking lots, and those of us on four wheels joined in yielding to foot-or wheelchair traffic. You have to be alert. The terrain of the National Military Medical Center is hilly, and for those in chairs, a good downhill toward the crosswalk is an opportunity not to be missed.
These are mostly young people in the chairs, so the demographic is not that of pensioners, but of high-testosterone young men in the prime of life. Those are the warriors who fight our wars, and some of the chairs were full-out competition models, and the young men in them, minus limbs, were as competitive as you might expect: wild eyed, bearing down on the rims of their wheeled chariots with fierce commitment.
The chair I have been living in is a utilitarian thing, not fast and very heavy. I eschewed the use of it yesterday since it is just too hard to horse around with the crutches, much less having to carry the sticks balanced on my shoulder. The double and sometimes triple amputees did not have a choice. Some of the latter had powered carts that could really fly, so caution and courtesy around the America Building where the Orthopedic Ward is located is the order of the day.
I was able to secure a handicapped parking spot in the garage, thanks to Raven’s blue placard. I looked at the permanent marker scrawl on the face, under the wheelchair logo. It expires in 2014. I made a resolution to be healthy by then.
I did the trip from the parking garage to the Cast Clinic spotting each tentative forward step on the sticks. A nice lady held the elevator for me, and I appeared in the Cast Clinic with only another Vet is a gray t-shirt, attended by his family. Identical government-issue crutches were at his side. Waiting time was minimal, and I was Baby Doc’s first patient of the day.
In preparation for my minutes with a physician, the duty Corpsman popped open the speed clips on the brace and the leg was exposed in the black clam-shell of the device. He cut off the bandage- apparently we are done with that now- and the long zipper scar is healing apace, though I will spare you a look at how the body does that, exactly.
First, the bad news. Baby Doc is moving on, and completes her rotation at the Clinic on the 30th of June. I am not scheduled to return until July, and thus this will be the last time I see her. “Hey,” I said, responding with a frown. “Continuity of care is the key to cure.”
“This sucks,” she said. “I get to go back to medicine. I will see if I can snag Dr. Anderson.”
Papa Doc, when he arrived, was briefly solicitous and gave me some cautious good news that made me optimistic that I will be swimming again by August. Then he asked Baby Doc what room he was going to be in next, and the complicating factor that the theater was being occupied by an open heart procedure, and I thanked my lucky stars that I was dealing only with the minor inconvenience of the leg.
According to Papa Doc’s instructions, transcribed by Baby Doc, I am authorized to go back to showering (thank Goddess!) and up to 40-degrees of motion on the limb. And stomp around on the crutches to my heart’s content and start rehabilitation exercises 2-3 times a week and not to come back for a month. She flew away someplace and left me to hook up the brace, reapply my shoe, and hobble out to make my return appointment.
The hobble back to the parking garage seemed to go better than the one on the way in. The rain had stopped. The traffic had died down, and only the whizzing wheelchairs populated by the intense young men without limbs provided brief barriers to vehicular traffic.
When I got back to Big Pink, I arranged with Rhonda-the-Concierge to have Leo and the Little Men come up and install the hand-held shower-head in the back bathroom, and the geezer shower-seat. I am looking forward to a nice soak today, as I am sure everyone who comes in contact with me will as well.
And now comes the scary part- exercising and putting weight on the leg again.
I am going to have my buoyancy back. I am going to be able to travel in August, you know? I only need to figure out where.
Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com