How can I count the ways of my gratefulness, I am reaching for the stars and looking for places where I can usurp some strength because I am tired, it is only Day #2 of my broken leg, I mean broken foot, and I am ready to park myself in bed and not get up. For six weeks.
But unlike when I had cancer and unlike when I had a fracture right after I had cancer. I have kids, but, wait, even then, I kept moving. I moved out of my parent's house and into my own apartment barely sprouting a shade of something that looked like hair on top of my head and I used crutches and went to work and had baths at night. Somehow I don't remember the tired, I must have felt it, the fatigue, the crutches. I only remember the perseverance. I keep going.
I always keep going. I made cookies tonight and a homemade quiche last night. The boys say, "We are glad you were not seriously injured," and, "Can you pass me that Mama?" It is not hard to say "No," and they get up and they get the door and wipe the table and bring their lunch boxes into the kitchen. And I get up and I help them get ready and I pack their lunches. We manage.
I had a three hour nap today. How am I going to work on Friday? Go to my Margaret Atwood dinner tomorrow? I will go and I will do it. This is the leg that had cancer and I worry, of course, that it won't heal, but if it could heal after the cancer, I am sure it will heal now. I kept the air cast from back then, I am having flashbacks. My mind likes to go to the anxious place where the What If's live.
What if I actually did my very best to move slowly and carefully on my crutches and take good care of myself, then in six weeks, I will keep going, just a little faster. Only 39 days to go. But who's counting?
