clamshell brace<\/a> that holds my ankle more securely side-to-side than the fracture boot did while still letting my foot flex. Last week I had a neighbor drop me in town for an experimental walk home. Though the ankle “talked” to me a bit coming up the last slope, walking was glorious<\/i>.<\/p>\nLord, I’ve missed this! Nothing helps me feel more healthy, sane, alive, and creative than walking.<\/p>\n
Appears I’ll be doing a lot more of it, too. Want to or not.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
As I was getting ready to walk to the post office, the mechanic called. “Car’s running just great!” he said. “I thought I’d bring it over to you and you could drive me home to see for yourself.”<\/p>\n
“Wonderful.”<\/p>\n
“Yeah. It only sputtered once since I did the work. But it didn’t die.”<\/p>\n
“Um … sputtered?”<\/p>\n
“Only once. It’s running fine now. Probably something with the throttle position sensor.”<\/p>\n
“And the service engine light?”<\/p>\n
“Well, that went off, but after the sputtering, it came back on. Running real smooth right now, though.”<\/p>\n
It seems even after three tries, he still doesn’t grasp the concept of “intermittant.”<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
He’s going to pull the new parts out, put the old ones back in, and bring the Xterra home to me later this week.<\/p>\n
I’m going to park it for the summer. Come September or October I’ll have one more try at fixing it, probably with an independent mechanic recommended by a local reader of this blog. (But yes, JB, I’ll be sure to ask if he has an oscilloscope. I’m done with both slavishly following computer codes and shooting in the dark.)<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
Thank you all for being so generous with your advice. There are still a few vehicle things we haven’t tried yet, but they’ll wait. I just don’t have the energy, cash, interest, or skill to keep pouring into this problem right now.<\/p>\n
When I realized that this fifth attempt had failed as decisively as the previous ones, the #1 thing I felt was relief.<\/p>\n
I can now cross Xterra worries (and Xterra expenses) off my list.<\/p>\n
I’m lucky. Where I live, I can handle 90% of everything I ever need to do on foot — now that I have feet again! For most of the rest, there’s a bus stop half a mile from here. And there’s even a dial-a-ride that will pick you up at your door, though I gather actually using it requires as much advance planning as a small military campaign. For the rest — vet visits, medical emergencies, Costco, toting big packages to or from the PO — I hope my friends and neighbors will be tolerant of me until I can deal with the vehicle again.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
Today is good. Today I feel as if a 10-ton weight has been lifted from my shoulders.<\/p>\n
It’s ridiculous how hard these last couple of months have been. I don’t mean to weep, wail, and play drama queen. We all have times like this in our lives where we get hit with one thing after another. And all my little hits have been what Commentariat member Jolly might refer to as “duck bites.”<\/p>\n
Right now, I can think of several people I know and cherish who’ve been hit — and hit again and again — by real tragedies, by life-threatening illnesses, by economic or legal disasters.<\/p>\n
Nothing in my life — knock wood — has hit that hard. Even in breaking my ankle, I did it “right” — getting a minor break to a lesser bone and having friends who helped me hugely. The worst of everything is that Robbie is probably not going to make it through the year, perhaps not even the summer. But then, he’s 14 and he’s been getting creaky for ages. Even Robbie dying, though sad, is a normal part of life. <\/p>\n
But I tell you, ever since the lovely day when I both broke the ankle and learned the Xterra’s problems were not going to be easily ended, it’s been one cr*p thing after another. An example: While I was still barely able to stand, I spent a week reeling with sudden attacks of vertigo. Imagine how much that<\/i> helped me get around! (The vertigo is nothing harmful. It just could have been timed better, you know?) That’s what it’s been like. For weeks. One minor new problem after another. Not to mention the depression, ennui, stiffness, and aches and pains of forced idleness.<\/p>\n
But now … I can walk. And nurse-friends, don’t tell me I shouldn’t be doing it yet. Because for life, health, and sanity, it’s the best possible thing.<\/p>\n
Only problem now is (this being such a small town and me living in such a cozy neighborhood) fending off all the neighbors who see me limping up the hill and stop to offer rides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I walked to town and back. It’s six weeks today since I broke my ankle and I can hear my nurse friends yelling, “Too soon! Too soon!” But all is well. I’m wearing a rigid clamshell brace that holds my ankle more securely side-to-side than the fracture boot did while still letting my foot flex. Last week I had a neighbor drop me in town for an experimental walk home. Though the ankle “talked” to me a bit coming up the last slope, walking was glorious. Lord, I’ve missed this! Nothing helps me feel more healthy, sane, alive, and creative<\/p>\n
Continue readingAfoot<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-and-science","category-rural-and-small-town-living","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}