Haven't figured out the best way to travel in terms of prosthetic leg. I know to get an aisle seat so my prosthetic is in the aisle. That way I can slip put of the socket and stand up and slip into it again. But all those hours in the gel liner - and that would be about 31 plus and additional 14 or so hours or so (from waking up in Cape Town on Tuesday morning to going to bed in Pittsburgh around 1 am Thursday - 45 hours in same gel liner with no break - is really hard on the skin. Skin breaks out in red blotches - almost like skin burns - probably resembles a baby's diaper rash. Actually, I should put myself on bed without liner on for a while as soon as I finish this to give the limb some healing air time. There are a couple of groups of lower limb amputees out there on the web and I should join one. I don't have to reinvent this stuff for myself; it's time to talk to other folks about how they do it.
Other limb related incident while on my sojourn in Cape Town has left me with a beautiful black eye. One of my nights in the lovely little house in Muizenberg - half asleep, I decided it was time to get out of bed to pee. I forgot I didn't have a lower limb. So, I landed on the floor, kerplunk, after hitting my forehead on the corner of the cabinet by the bed. I forget I was semi-legless once before while in rehab and tried to step out of my wheelchair - to pick up something I dropped - and also took a tumble, but that was when the amputation was fresh. This event surprised me. Fortunately, niece and nephew were in the house in the other bedroom and both came running. They replaced me in the bed after my potty break; niece fed me arnica and rubbed some homeopathic ointment on my head. I was given an ice pack, and I had no idea of the state of the bump or the bruise until the next morning. Other body parts hurt next day post fall, but it's the black eye that is rather stunning.
Other than that, the leg was not a serious limiter on the trip. Did some limited walking - but wasn't about to hike the hill to the lighthouse at Cape Point or trek to the top of Table Mountain. Would not have been able to do that with foot as it had been for the last few years either. And in Kruger Park, unless you sign up for extended hikes with guides with guns, all of the exploration is in your car. Staying in car was a struggle for some members of my family, and on more than one occasion, park guards came by to reiterate the need to stay in car. On one occasion, in a small road bypass, son-in-law decided he was going to step outside car (I don't remember reason), and a slew of Vervet monkeys slid down, jumped down, almost flew down - out of the tree he was standing by. Don't think they were planning to attack him, but they certainly were not happy with him. He quickly returned to car. Glad it was not baboons in the tree, or the home of hyenas. I did not get out of the car on our sojourns. And I did adopt the front side of the Mercedes we got from Hertz (because the smaller cars - as we requested were all gone). We had the one Mercedes and one VW Polo for our five days in the park. I knew where I belonged.
Those are the leg adventures on the trip. The rest of the trip stories are about the wonders we saw and the pain and poverty we saw. Perhaps I will put them out here or find another home for the stories. I am so glad that I went. I could have stayed longer and seen and done more, but I did have some experience of living in a middle class community in a white part of Cape Town. This is such a segregated city - economically and physically. And those are the other stories.
To my friends, it is almost the new year. I wish you Joy and more Joy in the coming year as well as peace and love and good health.
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