Walk on the wild side

Its no good I thought to myself this morning today's the day for taking a walk around the house, and when I say walk that's just what i mean. I have had sitting in a cupboard a nice selection of ankle and leg braces or should I put it another way KAFOs, knee-ankle-foot orthoses that have been doing nothing for rather a long time. Once was the time that I was able to stand up, sit down, and take a slow amble from one side of the kitchen to another. Its not smooth, its not elegant and its certainly not easy but I did used to be able to do it and bloody useful it was too. But 3 years of babies has meant my balance has gone to hell in a handcart, and my legs ballooned to pregnant proportions over the 9 months. So any kind of walking became more and more difficult until I decided it was best forgotten. However Ive realised that a little teeny tiny bit of extra mobility is a god send with small kids and as my doctor said last week, 'you need to mobilise' so Saturday morning at home seemed like a good chance to brush everything down and give it a whirl.

Of course wrestling with the damn things reminded me just why I don't use them very often, unwieldy and uncomfortable it takes ages to get them on properly and also I have to be a contortionist as well. I also have deformed legs, OK not exactly deformed... but the orthotics guy at the hospital described them as inverted champagne bottles, meaning fat thighs and skinny calfs. I know Ive always had fat legs and they still are even now! However this means that fitting isn't great and I can tell you this to be the fact as I always get sore spots afterwards. But Ho hum onwards and upwards.

So I was in the middle of launching myself across the kitchen floor, its a good smooth surface where I'm not too likely to trip over and plenty of things to grab hold of when I spotted my friends husband at the door. With new found confidence I lunged for the door and managed to half open it, I guess it was a shock to him as I don't think hes seen me standing up before so he looked as though he'd seen a ghost and I was lurking behind the door smiling madly while holding onto the wall. Ah hello I shouted in an ever so jolly I'm not going to topple over manner, he looked and blinked and mumbled something and then made a hasty retreat from the slightly crazed woman swaying in the doorway,... or so it seemed to me. But what he doesn't know is that he was actually the first person to see me stand for some considerable time, and it was a bit of a milestone for me . I didnt fall over this time anyway and hopefully I will be able to at least build on this for the months to come. I know I cant do stairs and I'm not going to be running round the garden but just being able to stand up enough to reach those bloody high shelves is a wonderful thing when you haven't done it for about 3 years. I'm just hoping my friends husband has recovered from the shock!