Some Notes

The other day, I was waiting with a younger brother to be picked up. For some reason or another, probably boredom, I had pulled up the leg of my sweatpants to expose the frame. One of the struts is comparatively loose and I have discovered that, by rattling it, it makes a fun and interesting sound. There are other means to achieve this rattling sound—namely, walking—but provoking the noise from the metal cage in a controlled environment is by far the preferred way to experience all the various sound effects the frame has to offer.

Long story short, the brother asked me to cover the frame up.

This confused me somewhat.

You see, after months of having the thing in my leg, I have ceased to think of the frame as anything out of the ordinary, except for when it interferes with movement or bumps against things it should not bump against. Even months later, I have a tendency to allow the frame to collide with all sorts of inanimate objects, often with less than desirable results (discomfort, mostly, depending on the angle of impact). I'm just really used to it.

I still get asked if it hurts, having the frame in my leg. My response is always the same: no, it doesn't. I can't feel it at all.

Well, this is not entirely true—there are some motion-aggravated twinges and discomforts. However, for the sake of this discussion, it is. The frame was put into my leg and for days not only was I on some really heavy pain medicines, but I had an epidural in. I could not feel anything. The epidural came out and I was still on some really heavy pain medicines. Eventually, I came off the medicine, and by then I guess I was used to it.

What I'm trying to get at is that by now, for all day-to-day intents and purposes, the frame is nothing more and nothing less than a geometric extension of my leg. There are long periods of time where I forget that it's in at all. My routines have barely changed. I'm living a pretty ordinary life.

This is, I think, why Leg+Frame has been so woefully neglected the past while. I spent forever on the couch but steadily improved to the point where I could walk with the walker, and then to the point where I could walk without the walker. And with walking came the sense that this was nothing out of the ordinary. And if this was nothing out of the ordinary, well, my desire to write entries here went down a lot. I just couldn't think of anything interesting.

I now have less than two weeks to go with this hunk of metal protruding from my bones—May 3rd, 7:30 AM (for a while, due to a failure in hearing, I mistakenly believed the scheduled time was 7:30 PM, much to my parents' amusement/derision). There are still some stories to tell here, some observations about life with a frame to go.

I just think it's interesting. Months in and I'm no longer disgusted by the sheer thought of this device (I was earlier, which was why I waited as long as I did to have the procedure). Others still are, to varying extents. Maybe the device is not as everyday as I've started to think it is?