A Three-Pack-A-Day Sitter

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​A Three-Pack-A-Day Sitter

       Yesterday, after a month of being mostly, in the medical lingo, non-ambulatory, I returned to my podiatrist for a checkup on my stress-fractured, moon-booted foot (see post from 8/19/2023, www.ailantha.com/blog/i-invalid-part-one-four-insults-and-an-injury).    

      Now, I had spent the past month sitting, around,    ​

...lying around, 

...and knee-wheeling around,

...while my beleaguered mate Tom took over the  housework, 

...shopping, cooking,

...and waiting on me, and I felt oh, so slothful, guilty, and not altogether sure that I really should be doing all this non-ambulating.
        It's just that it seemed so counterintuitive - I mean, is it not common knowledge that no matter what one's physical or medical condition, one needs to be up and around and moving, moving, moving? That everybody needs to be exercising all the time? That sitting is the new smoking? In which case I had become a three-pack-a-day sitter. 
         The more I sat, the less sure I felt that the doctor had meant that I should stay off my foot all the time. After two weeks of internal conflict and agita, I called the doctor's office to make sure I wasn't sitting around too much. I talked to the nurse, who assured me that, no, I wasn't supposed to be on the foot any more than barely necessary. 
           "You're using your knee scooter to get around, right?" the nurse asked me.
            I sheepishly replied that I didn't like the knee scooter so I'd sent it back. 
           "Well, then, you better not be walking around," she said. She then explained to me that the boot wasn't meant for walking as usual; it was just to stabilize my foot, and every step I took would cause the bone to separate, working against healing. "You do want to be using a knee scooter," she not-exactly-scolded me.
            I thanked the nurse, hung up the phone, got on Amazon and ordered myself another knee scooter.
         After another two weeks of sitting, being waited on, alternately thanking and apologizing to Tom (who suggested that I start calling him "Jeeves"),

...and, despite the nurse's assurances that being off my feet was the ticket, still feeling vaguely guilty and anxious, it was finally time to go back and see the podiatrist. I was re-x-rayed, and as the doctor studied my foot, gently probing here and there, I nervously yammered on about how I hadn't been out of the house in a month, how I'd spent every day sitting or lying around, how I used my knee scooter, all the while fearing that  he was either going to tell me that I'd taken a few steps too many and the foot wasn't healing or laugh and say, "Good Lord...you sat around all day? And you actually didn't leave your house for a month?!"
         But as it turned out, the doctor gave me snaps for being such a good patient. He said that because I'd stayed in the house, stayed off the foot, and used the knee scooter, my foot looked really good at this point in the healing process and he predicted that if I kept up this same regimen the foot would be all healed  and pain-free in another month.  
         And so, after having spent most of the past month feeling like I was doing something wrong and decidedly low on self-esteem, I suddenly felt like:      

       The doctor said that because my x-ray looked so good I could wean off the boot, wearing it for half a day for the next week, then the following week I could go back to wearing tennis shoes full time.
       "But I should still stay off my feet for the next month?" I asked him, just to make double sure.
        He nodded.
       Then I asked him one more time before he left the exam room. His reply didn't change.
         And so for the next few weeks I'll be sitting, lying, and, when necessary to get from the couch to the chair, wheeling around, reminding myself  that it's okay to be non-ambulatory, doctor's orders. I just hope I don't get addicted.    ​