RIP Surgical Boot

The hospital where my recent radical foot reconstruction took place 3 months ago has been the scene of nearly every health drama of my life and the lives of my kids. I have been in and out of the place so often that duty nurses know me by sight, an achievement of which I am, unsurprisingly, not particularly proud. If hospitals issued loyalty cards with a stamp for every procedure I'd probably be drinking my 20th free latte courtesy of the hospital canteen by now. If they gave stamps for every visit, I'd be a contender for the Guinness Book of Records. Well, I am back there today for a decisive appointment with my foot surgeon, who I hope will consign The Boot to history. Goodness knows I have worked hard enough to merit it. Five times a week in the pool, heaving myself on to my tiptoes, squatting up and down, walking length after length, and deploying mind over matter to move my stubborn new big toe, which has so much scar tissue around it it's like a fortress, and coaxing it to do anything requires a pain threshold few of us will ever reach in our lives. The surgeon takes x rays, looks at the foot from every angle, compares it to the other one, then does a 15 minute self congratulatory speech, which to be honest he probably deserves - swollen and stiff as it is, The New Foot is a thing of singular beauty compared to its gargoyle-like predecessor - and delivers my reward. I can stop wearing The Boot. Now I have to step up the physiotherapy to unstiffen the heel, the new arch and the new toe, and this is going to be painful in normal shoes but now is the time to do it. Well, I am ready for this of course, but the thing that is bothering me is not the pain or the months of physiotherapy. It is that I am now losing the only visible proof that I qualify for those specially assigned seats on busses and trains for those of us for whom standing for longer than a few seconds represents a major challenges. It's hard enough at the moment in the rush hour when people can't see you from the waist down. Last week, I had two fairly scary commuter episodes when very cross older ladies yelled at me for my selfishness, and frankly the bus both times was so packed it was impossible for me to hold my leg up so they could witness my qualifications to occupy a Disabled Seat. With the boot gone, it is time for artificial aids, as it were. I own a very cool collapsible black stick, and from tomorrow I will be making liberal use of it. The truth is that nothing less will drag a commuter from their own personal world. Oddly, nobody has yet asked me how it is that I manage to navigate Charing Cross station, which is huge and has a million stairs and corridors, without any walking prop, but the stick comes out as I walk up the platform, I lean on it to get in the carriage, I get myself into the seat freshly liberated by some other poor sod, and the stick gets folded up. Job done. The very exciting thing about No Boot is that our dining room chairs can now be returned to our dining table. For the last three months they have been living variously in bathrooms, hallways and stairs so I can sit whenever I need to. If you wanted to sit at our dining table for the last three months you had to move fast or you were consigned to the dilapidated old directors' chairs that are so low your eyes are about level with the tablecloth. Visitors to our home will be happy to have their line of sight restored. And of course, it means I no longer have to torture myself nightly about clothes. I can finally wear an outfit that will not lose all its dignity with the addition of The Boot. This is almost worth shelling out a whole new Post-Boot wardrobe for. But that requires effort and I have caught a cold, probably because of all the swimming sessions and the hobbling back home with wet hair in the rain. So, I decide not to go clothes shopping. Instead I polish off the last of the triple chocolate meringues I made at the weekend. There are quite a few left so this is an achievement.