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Slowly but surely, the details surrounding the frame are settling into place. There are still an awful lot of variables (such as how I'll manage to navigate our house, which has an unfortunate number of staircases and an unfortunate number of hallways which might be a bit too narrow for wheelchairs to comfortably pass through), but some of the major uncertainties have been resolved.

Now, these uncertainties have arisen from two conflicting sources of information: my surgeon and the nurse. Generally speaking, what the surgeon tells me hints at a less scary recovery, whereas the nurse generally alludes to terrifying potential realities. I've decided that I'm going to believe the surgeon, for three reasons:

1) The less time I spend in the hospital, the better

2) He's the one who's putting this thing on my leg in the first place

3) The information he tells me is more consistent with what I've heard

So…I will officially spend two to three days in the hospital. Four or five days after the frame is placed, pin adjusting and the actual process of leg straightening will begin. I will be in a wheelchair and completely non-weight-bearing for four to six weeks. I will roughly miss school for the month of January. Supposedly I'll be fully weight-bearing in about eight weeks, but I'm not entirely sure I trust that figure. The frame itself comes off after four to six months. Probably closer to six than to four.

Breaking from speculation involving my future, I've managed to be fairly productive today. Put the contact lenses in (I'm starting to get better at this, which is good, even if I still need a very specific set-up including a mirror which lights up, the dining room table and the presence of my mother). I also started the slow and steady process of trying to figure out what I'll be doing school-wise during the month of January. I've already got some writing projects, in the form of this blog and a story I've been playing around with, to keep me busy, but the sad truth of the matter is I'll still have some sort of academic expectations to fulfill.

As it turns out, though, those academic expectations might not be too bad. First, I'm dropping from a seven classes (the maximum at my school) to five next semester. Second, all of my teachers have been really understanding. The general line has been do what you can do, don't worry about missing content. While I'll definitely have some work to do (you can't just miss a month of Chinese and hope to come back relatively on top of things, and I might translate some Latin for fun), it looks like that part of my recuperation won't be too terrible. Which is good. I think I'll have enough on my plate.

That's all for tonight. At some point I've been meaning to fill in my previous history with surgeries and my particular bone disorder, so that'll probably be the next post. For now, I'm just getting excited for a five-day weekend starting Wednesday. Holidays truly are wonderful things…