4 Weeks on...

4 weeks today since I broke my ankle. Amazing! To think that I went to bed that night fully expecting to get up as normal the next day and one fall and four weeks later here I am still trying to get used to life on one leg. Had I known what to expect I would have made more plans – not least making sure I had adequate suppliers – poor Ian is going to have to stock up on toiletries and other bits and pieces soon.

Of course now I am looking at things with the benefit of hindsight, and there are a few things I could have done (well actually asked Ian to do) which would have helped. One thing would be to sort out somewhere low to keep clothes. I hate to having to ask Ian to help and I really don’t want to feel that I am taking advantage or being an imposition. So when he kindly takes my washing off the washing line and putting it on the bed, I can only move it to on top of the basket box, where if I don’t keep the room cat free, it falls onto the floor and becomes a cat nest. If I was planning for this I would have cleared a couple of drawers in a chest of drawers at sitting height and ensuring that there is a chair in front. As I have found that I am spending most of my time in t-shirts and shorts because of the heat, I am not having to worry about finding clothes that are cast friendly. Hopefully by the time the weather changes my ankle whilst still perhaps in a cast will be a lot less sensitive to being jolted as I hop around putting clothes on.

I'm getting quite good now at communicating what happened with my leg, and most people now know anyway. People always take the time out to ask me how I am, or if Ian is out on his own they ask after me - the warmth and kindness has been wonderful. I am even able to crack a joke in Spanish which is that I am good for a person hopping on one leg. Ok - it's a bit of a pathetic joke, but a few months ago I could get as far as asking for a beer and that entailed a certain amount of headscratching! My lack of Spanish was how I got into my last foot related scrape which was when I ended up taking part in a 24 km walk by mistake (I heard 2 km), and my toe nails fell off in shock.

I had my dressing changed today and there was some bleeding on the left hand side, but not much really. I don't have to go back until Friday to get it changed which is great. Whilst it can be quite quick if we get there at the right time, today we timed it perfectly wrong and had to wait for quite a while before we saw the nurse. This also means we can get to the Police Station to register for our NIE numbers.



PS: This pic was taken outside the healthcentre - a man taking his lamb and dog for a walk.