October 16, 2010

This is about the new prosthetic. I got my new socket this Wednesday. It is pretty beautiful to look at - and you can see it on my facebook page. I don't want to spend the time to figure out how to get pictures on this blog (and I'm sure it is easy). I took some quilt blocks that I was working on, put them together big enough to cover the new socket, and they were "tattooed" on the socket. It surely is one of a kind.

And this socket is much smaller than the last one. I probably told you that the residual limb shrinks - it is part of the process, and is likely to keep shrinking for a year or so. So, this is unlikely to be my last socket - but it could last for a year. And it is offering me some challenges.

The pipe, or stem or pylon - it is called many things but it exists between the socket and the foot - is longer than the previous one. So the socket it further from the foot. Seems to me as if I have to really learn some new balancing techniques. I am not as stable as I was on the prior socket. And that means, that I simply have to take two canes or a crutch or something and get very deliberate about walking as exercise. I don't know any other way to get comfortable with this. And I'm not sure that walking around the supermarket with a cart or from my car to the movies works. I simply don't focus on the walking when I do that. So, let me start today. I'll have some food and take a walk around the block before I start my errands.

And I am starting my day really late. I read a book last night and this morning "Banished" by an old friend, Sophie Littlefield. Sophie worked for me when I was director of an organization known as ACNS at Northwestern. She is now writing the kind of novels that I love to read, and I didn't get up until 10:30 this morning when I finished the book. Started it last night, picked it up again at 7am and finished it. You go Sophie!!
So, if I am going to get my stuff done today, it it probably time to go for it.

I will keep posting about how I do with this new socket. (Next big "anniesankle" adventure could be a new foot in the spring - maybePost Options even a computerized one).