…and His Lordship’s artificial limb could not be found.

So goes a favorite panel of mine from the works of Edward Gorey, and so goeth I.

The saga of my ailing right foot is finally at an and, as my right leg now comes to an end just above mid- shin.

Surprisingly, this is a Good Thing.

Now, if I had been a promising olympian athelite- a sprinter, perhaps, or some south american making ridiculous amounts of cash for my ability to kick field goals, this would be a tragedy. However, I am none of these things. I was sentanced to a purgatory, sick and ailing and told that I was not to walk. Now that I think about it, not walking to save a foot does seem a little silly. But it was what I was sentanced to, and over the last few years, I was getting sicker and sicker, fighting off a localized bacteria in that crippled foot that had my immune system worn paper thin keeping it from blossoming into infection. I had grown depressed and exhausted just living, and condemned to being a shut in was not helping anything. So I stayed in, off my foot as much as I could and still stay sane.

I couldn’t even wear my boots, and I think that was not helping my health, mental and otherwise. (Don’t tell me not wearing my boots was not injuring my physical health, if Superman can be hurt being near glowing green gravel, I can waste away without my boots. It could happen.)

Then my little nephews came to visit, bearing the gift of plague, as all kids do, and my immune system was overrun by Xerxes’ hordes of bacteria. I had a fever, and fourty eight hours later Soulhuntre was helping me get to the hospital, where my suddenly inflated foot was drained of about eight or nine gallons of pus. By the time all the doctors were done poking it, it had to go.

Even then, I knew this was a good thing. Get this fucking thing, this albatross, get it the fuck offa me. Give me a nice, modern prosthetic so I can have my fucking life back!

And so they did.

When I woke up, I felt amazing. Removing that source of illness made my whole body one big sigh of relief. A second operation and some weeks later, the whole thing is nearly healed- I am mere weeks from starting prosthetic training.

I am, of course, recovering in another goddamn geriatric facility (Yoo-Hoo) and have only just (thanks again to my droog Ken Soulhuntre, bless his black and bitter heart) gotten back online to rejoin the civilized world; but the end is in sight, a month or so away. 

It’s been a long few months in this place, but with physical therapy and a prosthetic, I am going to walk the fuck outta here this spring.

In my new boots.