Interruption: A bit of an intervention/Mom’s First Wheelchair
I didn’t mention this earlier, but about a week before we left for Florida, I found out that I needed foot surgery! Michael and I went for a walk and my right foot hurt so much that I was favoring it. Favoring it caused my gait to change and my back to hurt. I made an appointment with a podiatrist who said I needed an operation and that I should plan it for the fall. He said it would make a big difference in my quality of life and that I should do it while the cartilage in my foot was still flexible. I scheduled the surgery for September. When I told the doctor that I was going to Disney World in a week, he said something non-committal like “You’ll figure it out.”
Our first day at Hollywood Studios, I was in some pain, but trying to tough it out. My toe kept bumping into the toebox of my sneaker. By the end of the day at Magic Kingdom, Jake said he could see pain in my face every time I put weight on my right foot. I kept saying I would power through, but Mike and Jake clearly had their doubts. When we returned to AKL that night Mike got a look at my funky-looking feet made even more weird because my skin had blistered and taken on the pattern of my Naot comfort sandals, and said, “You need a wheelchair.”
WHAAAT? A wheelchair? I’m not even 60 yet. Michael said that I was obviously suffering and that if I continued to be too proud to use a wheelchair, how did I know I wouldn’t do more permanent damage to my feet and back? It was a compelling argument. Michael is a project manager so my feet were a “risk” and the wheelchair was a “mitigation strategy.” He’s sitting here as I write this and said not to post a picture of my foot because “it will scare people.” Don’t worry. I wasn’t going to.
