Prosthetic Appointment #2 - Jan. 27

So today turned out to be the day Chris and I have waited for over 14 months, and E.R. has waited way longer.

E.R. had her regularly scheduled check with her surgeon in the afternoon. But in the morning we got a call from Shriners that the prosthetic lab was working on her leg all day, and MIGHT be done by her appointment time, and that we should stop by. I was warned not to get my hopes up, but of course that had already happened!

A few hours later I realized that I hadn't gotten E.R. shoes for the fitting yet, since I had thought we still had a week. So E.R., J.T. and I rushed to the shoe store. I didn't really know what to get except that they had to be as flat as possible, so we bought four pairs that looked like they would work, and I decided to let our prosthetist choose what would be best for our girl to learn to walk in.

So I packed extra snacks and toys for J.T. as I remembered how long we were in the prosthetic lab last time. We headed into Shriners after school and when we were checking in, I was told that our prosthetist had come looking for us about 20 minutes before. No one knew what it meant!

So we did our regular appointment, and of course all of the snacks were gone by the end of that, and then headed around the corner. We waited in the reception area, and the coordinator said "I haven't heard yet!" By now I'm starting to think that it isn't ready and no one wants to break the bad news. We waited for what seemed like forever. Then our prosthetist came out and said she had just checked, and it was DONE.

You know those feelings you have sometimes when you realize that your whole life just changed in the last moment, and nothing will be the same ever again? Well that's what I had when I heard the word "done".

So she brought in E.R.'s new leg, and began to work to get it to fit. E.R. still has lots of swelling, so it was a bit of a challenge. But finally it was on, and E.R. was up standing straight and tall for the first time in her life! I took pictures and then put the camera down so I could help the girl walk. I wanted so badly for Chris to be there, but it all happened too fast for us to plan well.



Holding tightly on to one of us with both hands, she was able to walk around the room and into the hall. She would have walked her little self right out of Shriners, but we had to bring her back to check her leg. Her leg looked okay after the walking, except for that darn open wound. It oozed out onto the sock, and our prosthetist told me would really have to watch that, and not let her walk for as long as we had just talked about. I could already feel the battles coming over that...


The most interesting thing is that I was expecting some sort of excitement, or shock, or light-bulb moment from E.R. where I saw that finally everything she had been through now made sense. But it never came. She was so determined to walk that she didn't seem as excited as she usually gets about new experiences. And an uncanny feeling began to wash over me as I realized that I think this girl has understood everything all along. I always assumed she only understood things at a 2 year-old level, in bits and pieces. But as I watched her at Shriners today I realized I was wrong. This kid understood all of the conversation we've had. She recognized what her Cabbage Patch Kid's foot symbolized. I think she got it all...

I think somewhere deep down she was ready for the first day of the rest of her life.