PLATTEVILLE, May 27 — If you saw me at the half-dozen or so events I covered this weekend you may have noticed that the phrase “put your best foot forward” no longer is like being first chair in a one-person band section.
On Wednesday after three fitting efforts and a few weeks of assembly in the hot Arizona sun, I got my new right leg.
Leg number one has a U.S. flag design appropriate for this semiquincentennial year. The next leg will have the option of my own custom design on the “shin” between the not-very-mobile knee and my hydraulic ankle. (One thought: “THIS SPACE FOR RENT” plus my phone number. Or I suppose I could duct-tape a tablet there so the message could be changed for a fee, as if anyone would look at the bottom of someone’s prosthetic leg for an advertising message.)
As someone who had essentially no knowledge of artificial limbs before now other than Brazilian runner Oscar Pistorius and his blade legs, I find this a pretty fascinating piece of medical technology. It essentially attaches to my right leg up to mid-thigh through suction. The hydraulic ankle attaches to a foot that is somewhat narrower than the one I was born with (apparently there are foot options), and both mean I don’t have to walk as if I have a fused ankle. It also means that I can finally climb stairs in a better fashion than hopping or what is known to medical science as the “butt scoot.” (Twice up stairs at the Kohl Center for state boys basketball. Really.) It also makes it easier to do things like take out the garbage, even accompanied by the walker.
I have been working up to full-time wear in the past week, and I timed my wearing sessions to be able to do things that are harder to do balancing on one leg. That included, Sunday night, the annual Belmont Fire Department street dance, for which I maneuvered inside the garage and on the street with my walker as a blocker, though I ran into no problems from exuberant concert-goers.
That also included, on Monday, covering the Platteville Memorial Day program, walking to and from the Municipal Building and City Park for the remembrance of those from Platteville who gave their lives to defend their country from the Civil War onward. This year’s program simply read the names of the known war and service-related dead, where they served, when they died and, when known, their ages of death.
I am still using a walker because physical therapy hasn’t started yet. I have yet to learn how to do two things comfortably — sitting and getting into and out of a vehicle. I am told that I will likely graduate from the walker to a cane. It has already been suggested that I should use either a cane with a skull on the end, or a cane made of a certain bone found in bulls. I would think about the latter option except for the possibility that our dog might find that something to chew.
My weekend also included my making brats on the grill. Friends came to visit this weekend, and Saturday afternoon the men discussed food over beer. (In my case, my love of shrimp, though that is not what this paragraph is about.) I mentioned my brat recipe that produces guaranteed doneness without the drying-out that boiling in beer provides. My brats are, believe it or don’t, baked in beer, along with onions and peppers, at 400 degrees for one hour. The grill is only for browning, so they don’t have to be on that long, which is good given propane prices these days.
I do not believe Memorial Day weekend is only for commemoration of our war dead, though it should include those remembrances. Memorial Day weekend’s being the first weekend of summer (and the longest possible summer given the dates of Memorial Day and Labor Day) jams in college and high school graduations, visits to cemeteries (American culture doesn’t have the Day of the Dead found in Latino countries), and sort-of nice-weather Veterans Day. But also work, otherwise you would not be reading this edition of your favorite weekly newspaper.
I also wrote here previously that my recovery from joining the world of the less-than-fully-limbed (specifically a RBKA) was to get my life back. I have done as many things as I could with one leg and a walker, thanks to my family and others who have helped out, even to hold open a door. The new leg (which does not have a name yet, though for some reason a local school official now calls me “Lefty”) is helping me reach that goal.
You wanted that $300? In response to our first Letter this week: Tuesday morning breaking news was that the Marquette University Law School poll determined that 80 percent of Wisconsinites wanted the special education funding/property tax cut/income tax rebate favored by Gov. Tony Evers and local legislative Republicans but spiked by Wisconsin Democrats earlier this month. And 69 percent of those polled wanted the deal now instead of waiting until next year for more information on the state’s budget situation.
