Naked.

Yesterday was a phenominal day.  My parents are seriously the most amazing people I have ever known - you should have seen the way that they worked so hard on building a ramp for me the night before my appointment.  I kept hearing the drill over and over and over again, and I just started laughing.  It's a looooong ramp.  Kind of scary actually because the momentum really gets going on it, and I have to wear gloves so I don't get wheelchair burns.  Ha ha, seriously!  Oh man.  Wheelchair burns.  My dad ended up having to pull me down because I was holding onto the rims so tight.  I mean, I was going backwards, couldn't see where I was going, and I was going fast.  Talk about trust.  But that's another entry...

They hoisted me into the car, my arms over each of their necks.  They are almost fifty, and they're lifting their 23-year-old daughter into a van.  I just laughed and said, "Thought you were done with this when I was three, didn't you?"  God works in really funny ways, I must say.  He definitely has a sense of humor.  I think it's important that we should have one too.  : )  (And, I can't even tell you how hard I have to work to not put smiley faces after everything I say when I'm blogging.  Ugh.  I love my colon and parenthesis.)

Anyway, we tackled the feat of me getting in the car, and only had to go back into the house three times for things I had forgotten.  Then we were off!  And, suprisingly, we were on time for my appointment.  We made our way in, (it was kind of fun to ride in the wheelchair...when someone else is pushing you.  Especially when that someone is your dad, who likes to go really fast, and also sees riding in a wheelchair as a fun thing.)  The nurse who called me in was nice, but she didn't seem to know where I was supposed to go.  I get worried about that kind of thing, I don't know why, but she kept saying that I was going to "casting" where they put on your casts, and we kept saying, "But we're here for x-ray."  We just went with her chart.  Turns out that I was going to casting first so they could take off my casts.  She cut away my ace bandages (here's me, "Wait!  We could have re-used those!), and then started to pry the plaster of paris off of my legs.  I felt so naked.  The moment I saw blood I closed my eyes.  I told you I wasn't going to look.  And I didn't.  I made it through the whole day without seeing my legs somehow.

I had to have extra pillows put underneath my legs because the muscles were quivering.  After two weeks!  My legs have weakened so much.  That was kind of scary.  Anyway, the lady finished pulling the stuff that was stuck to my legs off, slipped some really soft socks over them, and I was on my way to x-ray.  I got there and the technicians didn't realize how honkin' huge my plates were, so we had to re-take pictures of my right leg.  Nothing like a little exposure to some yummy x-rays.  I hid behind the little "sit-upon" mat they give you to protect your body like I was being shot at.  You should have seen me going into the CT scans a couple of weeks ago...I was fiercely praying that I wouldn't get cancer.  I have this fear of cancer...also another entry.

Removal of casts? Check.  X-Rays?  Check.  Feeling pretty darn vulnerable as they are wheeling me from place to place, bump over bump with NOTHING to protect my legs?  Check.  Next we move onto the removal of the stitches.  I won't go into it, but the cast lady said I did a good job.  She said most people cry and scream - I couldn't feel it too badly.  I believe it was one of those ways that God intervened because he knows how much I can handle.  I had a baby C-section skirt in my lap to hold over my eyes while my parents ooooed & awwwed.  My mom looked pretty grossed out in the beginning, but she grew used to it. My dad took pictures the whole time, and shows them to everyone that comes over.  If you have a weak stomach and come to visit, be prepared.  Speak up.  Don't be embarrassed because I haven't seen them yet either.

The doctor came in after the cast lady had scrubbed my legs clean (ow), and reiterated the fact that he surpassed his own expectations (another way that God had clearly worked) - everything looked great.  The spill I had taken when I first got home hadn't ruined any of his masterpiece(s).  He wants to see me again (oo-la-la) in five weeks.  The right leg goes in a boot (which is amazing because I broke two giant bones), and has therapy coming its way.  The left leg stays in the cast, and CANNOT be touched, prodded, jiggled too hard, manhandled, or dropped.  I'm not allowed to put any weight on it, whatsoever, and he gave me a mean look when I asked him about moving from my commode to the bed & putting pressure on my heels.  No.  No weight.  Whatsoever.  Whoops.

So yeah.  My legs were recasted after that (with the assistance of my dad), and I was on my way!  After some bullying of my ankles, of course.  She had to push them back into a flat-footed position because when they were naked, they would droop.  Ha ha.  Seriously!  They fell over, and I couldn't control it.  I think it's because they were ashamed of their nakedness.

I picked black.  That seemed to be the vote on Facebook, but this guy walked out and had black, and it looked sharp.  I asked the lady if she would do zebra, and she said she would.  She actually suggested candy cane.  Ha ha.  I'm not that adventurous.  Yet.  Muah ha ha ha.  I should have asked her if she could have made a face on it with all the different colors.  Or a landscape.  I think what I might do next time is get glow-in the dark white, and commission someone to paint a landscape all over it.

The casts are a lot lighter than the original ones, so I can lift my legs a lot easier which is good.  They feel so safe and snug in their new little homes.  They did not like being naked.  I have not felt that vulnerable in public for a long time.  I was freakin' out!  "Don't let anyone bump into my legs!  Dad!  Get up there and block anyone from getting too close!  Mom, you were really close to that wall, are you watching where you are going?"  I was a wreck.  Feeling naked in public is not a fun feeling, but I'm so thankful that I had people around me to protect me.  I felt like a baby elephant in the middle of all the momma and daddy elephants.

It make me wonder about Eden, and how it must have felt to be naked all of the time.  Like, they didn't even realize it, but that's so incomprehensible to me.  I'm just so glad that no poopy snakes came out to attack me in the middle of Froedtert Hospital.  And that there were no fruit trees in the lobby.  Seriously though, I know the fall has already happened, but feeling that naked helped me to relate to how Adam and Eve must have felt when they first realized that they were naked.  I'm sure they were freaking out!  Maybe yelling at each other or crying or feeling completely out of control.  And, I'm so glad that God has so much compassion on his kids...that he knows what we need, even beyond what we know & can see.  He reached out to them first, made them clothes, and told him that he still loved them.  I'm so glad!