one hop forward, two hops back

once more, with healing

Warning: below is a picture of my amputated leg. It’s not particularly gory but if you’re squeamish about images of, well, incomplete aka residual limbs, maybe cover your eyes when you get to that part.

I had an appointment with Dr. F earlier this week.

Dr. F is the plastic surgeon who sewed my leg up after Dr. M lopped off my foot, and the other doctor (whose name I have forgotten but she was a lady doctor who seemed VERY YOUNG) performed the fancy surgery that tells my nerves to work with my remaining muscles.

Can you even believe it’s been three months since this all started?

Anyway, when last I saw Dr. F, she said I was healing nicely, and that by this time I should be healed completely.

And she was right.

There was the tiniest bit of a scab left, attached to my leg by a flake of dead skin that she clipped off with what looked like medical grade nail scissors. I took a picture of the stump before she did this, her final act of surgery on me:

I think she looks nice.

It’s hard to tell, but there is a faint scar on the front of my leg. Just above the big scar where the main incision was. I’m assuming the small scar is from a last ditch effort from the villainous necrotizing fasciitis tried to creep further up my leg in its mission to, well, kill me. I guess I could confirm this by actually asking my doctors but I prefer to live in mystery for now.

What does this healing mean? It means that, assuming Dr. H (my amputee doctor at Shirley Ryan) agrees with Dr. F, and that I am actually healed, then Nick and his merry band of prosthetists can start taking my measurements to make me a prosthetic leg.

I have been studying the booklet they published about being a leg amputee, which includes pages and pages of different types of prosthetic legs and feet. It’s hard not to imagine what my new leg and foot will look like.

Is this what you all went through when you were teenagers with learners permits, learning to drive and dreaming of your first car?

I’m trying not to get ahead of myself, leg-wise, because it’s most likely all going to come down to what Dr. H prescribes and, more importantly, what Medicaid will actually cover. Like, I’m pretty sure I probably won’t get something robotic that stores energy that can be used to help me hike up a small mountain. But something better than, say, a human sized Barbie leg made out of the plastic they use to make Mold-A-Rama figurines would be nice.

Now I think Shirley Ryan actually needs a Mold-A-Rama machine where you get get a little plastic prosthetic leg. It would be an awesome fundraiser and I could have another little figure to add to my growing collection of Mold-A-Rama figures.

Thursday got off to a not good start. I was supposed to meet with my therapist for the first time. A therapist who would hopefully help me begin the process of unpacking the trauma of being an unemployed amputee with a history of hoarding and possibly undiagnosed anxiety. But that did not happen as I waited at the bus stop for a bus that would not come. Once again, the CTA decided to engage in some morning rush hour shenanigans with my bus line so the bus I would take was actually coming down another street. There were people at the stop who noticed this, and could flag down the bus, and ran across Foster Avenue to catch it. But I couldn’t because the bus was pulled up right next to a bike rack that blocked my wheelchair. And the next bus that came along stopped just to tell me that she wasn’t supposed to pick me up and I said I knew that but the buses were being weird and she let down the ramp. But by that point I was too upset so I just rolled off — which, let me tell you, is not as satisfying as stomping off — back into my apartment building. Where I cried.

It was too late to order a WAV. I wiped my tears and left a voicemail for the therapist, asking to reschedule.

I went upstairs, took off my coat and shoe, and got back into bed.

This is perhaps the second or third time I’ve had a tantrum since I’ve been in a wheelchair. Once again, it’s because of CTA foolishness. If there is a Facebook group out there called “why is the CTA so awful for wheelchair users in Chicago”, then somebody point me to it so I can join immediately.

If there isn’t, then I suppose I can take some delight in creating that group so I can post my screeds there instead of here.

I know it could be worse. It could be better, but it could be worse. I didn’t lose my home in a fire that destroyed my neighborhood. Here’s a link if you need info on how to help - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/us/help-california-la-wildfires-victims.html. I have nice friends who bring me a lot of food when they visit. I’m listening to my radiator hiss to live which means I have too much warmth in my apartment.

I have this substack. Which I hope will have better, more fun and frivolous things to talk about, sooner rather than later.

xoxo jasmine