Salt is the ENEMY!!!

12:27 p.m.

UGHHHH!

So today is day one of committed walking. Woke up to pouring, and I mean POURING rain - but I'm thinking no big deal because I have the awesome golfing rain gear that John bought me last year. I can still walk in the rain, as long as I be careful not to slip and fall. Rain is tricky as heck cuz I can't feel my footing with the NBF and when I start to slip, or hit some slick spot, I don't know it until I'm taking a header towards the pavement. So, yes it's raining, but I'm rearing to go, so I'm up and out of bed at 8:12 a.m.

Now getting dressed is like manuevering an obstacle course at this point in my rehab.... can't sleep with the NBF on, and training my brain to switch gears from being a one-legged person to a two-legged person can be difficult without coffee first....

1. Grab my crutches and gather the clothing I want to wear
2. Undress
3. Unwrap the leg from the ace bandage I need to wear to shrink the limb
4. Put the gel liner on the limb
5. Put on my socks - prosthetic sock for the limb, matching socks for my right foot and then the left foot sock goes over the fake foot on the prosthetic.
6. Put a shoe on the prosthetic using the gigantic shoe horn before putting the leg on
7. Dress upper half of the body
8. Fit pantleg on over NBF before putting pants on
9. Put limb in NBF (which includes another gel liner up to the thigh) and stand there for three minutes to see if it fits comfortably. If not, take leg off and change prosthetic sock to thicker or thinner, accordingly.
10. Put limb back into prosthetic and wait another three minutes for it to settle.
11. Stand there like a goofball, happy that it fits, and freezing my butt off since I still only have my undies on and one leg in my pants.
12. Put good leg in other pant leg and pull up my britches.
13. Put right foot in shoe that matches the shoe on the NBF.
14. Hobble around the room for a few minutes to wake up the limb and hope the pain goes away..... if it doesn't, then just be happy I'm upright and gear up for the decent downstairs to the kitchen.

And VOILA, in a mere half-hour to 45 minutes, I'm dressed! Of course I am not showered (that is another story altogether) my hair is a mess - and who has time for make-up after all that????

Except for this morning...... I ate too much pizza last night and my limb swelled about a 1/2 inch too big for the NBF and I could not get the NBF on to save my life!

Now it's 12:47 p.m. and the NBF still doesn't fit. Drank gallons of water and had to re-wrap the limb in the ace bandage, elevating my limb, hoping the swelling will go down so I can try getting the NBF on this afternoon.

I guess pizza is now on my list of foods to avoid if I want to be sure my leg will fit every morning.... along with Chinese Food, Cheese, KFC, Mexican, French Fries, and just about any other kind of take-out food known to man.

So, first morning of training didn't go so well . . . and I have so much to learn about this limb of mine. But I did manage 45 minutes of physical therapy exercises before my low-salt lunch. . I will get that damn NBF on before nightfall, or my name isn't Keegan :)