The Cast: Day 5 of 42ish...hopefully...

Things I've learned in the first five days of being in my lovely bright orange cast:

- Using crutches is not nearly as easy as I thought it would be.
- My cat is scared of my crutches, but only when they are in use by me.
- Capri pants are my friend.
- I can still hold my nephew and my godson even with my cast, only it is trickier with my godson, since he just turned one, and moves, now, a lot faster than me.
- My church's hallways are longer than I thought they were.
- I have a whole new perspective on what it means to call something 'handicap accessible'. My church is accessible on each floor, though we have no elevator. But there is access from outside to each level, accessible bathrooms, etc. However, I've borrowed a wheelchair to use for getting around at church, and discovered glitches already - for example, our front doors don't unlock from the outside. You have to unlock the door by the office, and then unlock the main sanctuary doors from the inside. Problem: the door by the office is not accessible - it is two steps up. Hm. Also, the side aisles in the sanctuary are wide enough for a wheelchair, but just. How you get down the aisle without scraping your knuckles is a mystery to me. And this is something I will only be forced to think about for a very few weeks. Eye-opening.
- My mom is a life-saver. She's stayed at my house for the first few days. I hate having to be waited on, especially by my mom, since she's already racked up enough of waiting on her four kids her whole life, and it should now be her turn to be waited on, but I would have been in deep trouble without her here for these first few days. How does one pour a bowl of cereal and eat it in a different room from the kitchen with crutches? Answer: ask Mom for a bowl of cereal. She'll bring it to you. She went back home tonight for the first night and within 30 minutes of her leaving, I fell. I was trying to move from the crutches to the wheelchair so I could have my hands free, and before I even tried to sit down in the chair, I lost my balance and fell right over. Ouch! I think everything is OK, but of course, I called my mom for her advice. (Besides being a mom, she's a nurse, which is also handy.)
- My colleague Betsye Mowry, who is pastor at the other UMC in Oneida, called on me today. I think it was my first experience of being on the other side of a pastoral call. (I've had surgery twice before, at ages 12 and 17, but I wouldn't even let my mom but my name on the prayer list either of those times. Ironically, I'm very private usually about all that. A pastor's nightmare parishioner, right?) It was nice. Betsye is a neat person, and she's remembered exactly when my surgery was going to be since I told her about a month and a half ago.
- I promise not to blog *solely* about my cast for the rest of the summer ;)