Later in the day the doctor came in. He went over to Jaci’s bed with the nurse and pulled the curtain. Sandra went with them. She was to not let Jaci alone with anyone, even the medical staff. She stood at the edge of the bed where she could observe every action.

The doctor told Jaci they needed to remove the pylon to check the healing of her leg.

She looked at him, tears filled her eyes, “Do I have to look?”

“Only if you want to.”

He unhooked the belt and carefully slid the pylon off her stump. She looked away as he lifted her stump and inspected it. She could feel his fingers touching her. He put some antibiotics on the incision and checked the stitches. All seemed in order. “You’re doing well young lady. Your leg looks good.” He was about to slip the pylon on her stump when she stopped him.

“Can you wait a minute?”

“Only a short one, we need to get you back into that cast to keep your leg from swelling. If it does you’ll not be able to walk on it till it goes down. It might take days. It would really set you back.”

“If it isn’t going to hurt me I want to see it. I have to. I have to now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Look but don’t take too long. It’ll help if you keep it elevated too.”

She had not looked as yet. “Can I touch it?”

“If you want to but just don’t touch the incision. We don’t want any infections.”

“Can I lift it?”

“Sure, pick it up so you can see it.”

“Oh,” was her only expression as she lifted her stump so she could see it.

“It’s not very long, I expected it to go almost to my knee.” She held her hip and moved her hands till they approached her incision.

“We had to cut it to remove the damaged area. That was as much as we could leave. The bullets shattered the bones. The fragments of the bones and the bullets tore up the muscles, nerves and veins. If we cut too low you would have had a sore leg you couldn’t walk on or we might have had an area that would not have healed and you would have needed additional surgery.”