Learning opportunity

I’ve had my final surgery and my second-to-last follow-up, so I asked my surgeon about the future of my ankle. He told me to expect the possibility that my right ankle may never feel normal again. He said, “With that type of break, at the very least, that is always going to be your bad ankle.” When I told him I also had fibromyalgia, he said I should expect pain.

The Real Christine says, “That’s sixty more years of ankle pain! How am I really supposed to live like that? What quality of life is that for someone who likes to nature hike?”

I’m right footed. Did you know you have a foot like you have a hand? Make like you’re going to do a cartwheel, get in that pose. No, you don’t have to do the cartwheel, but look at your pose. Whichever foot is out in front is your dominant foot. (You also have a dominant eye.)

When I used to cartwheel, my right foot was out front. When I hoola hoop, my right foot is in charge. I pivot from my right foot, I push off with my right foot, and I use my right foot as the foundation of strength from which to hoop dance. Learning Christine says, “Well, if we can’t use the right leg, we’ll have to learn to use the left!”

I love Learning Christine, god bless her, and I hope she’s right, but Real Christine is scared to death right now. I know deep in my core that, yes, I can learn to hoop left-footed and hopefully even extend that lesson to a left-footed life, but Real Christine doesn’t want to do the process of learning. Real Christine wants to wake up tomorrow having learned. Her brain wants her body to already know.

In the end, Real Christine is getting a life lesson from Learning Christine. There’s just no other way to live.