DAY FORTY FOUR

With a storm blowing everything around they went for their next appointment first with the surgeon who pronounced their stumps well healed.  Their next stop was at the leg shop as they called it.  There they were fitted with their suction socket for their peg legs and helped to use them.  All three walked without much effort on the pylon with the new socket.  It was more comfortable and gave them better control than the cast.  They were encouraged to keep the cast available in case they had a socket problem.  It could be used with a couple of layers of stump socks if needed.  With the new thinner socket they were more comfortable sitting and more of their weight was resting on their buttock when standing, taking most of the pressure off the end of the stump.  They were measured carefully and a leg with an active knee was fitted for each of them.  This would be their new leg, the one that was to replace their missing extremity.  It would look like a leg and it would bend like a leg.  Margie looked at the new device longingly.  With it she would walk like she did before the shooting. 

About a half hour after they took the measurements the technician came out with Penny’s leg.  The other two were still being assembled.  He wheeled her to the one end of the parallel bars.  She stood holding them and he sat the leg in the floor in front of her.  It did not have the cover yet.  It was just the internal parts of the leg.  He reminded her the cover would not be put on till the adjustments were complete.  Penny stepped forward placing her stump into the socket.  It slid in and she felt the suction as her stump made proper contact.  She tested it several times, putting weight on this new appendage.  It felt good.  She imagined how it would look with the cover, like her other leg.  The tech instructed her to swing it forward; to step out with it but keep her hands on the parallel bars.  The first time Penny tried to take a step with it she couldn’t move the new leg.  The newly attached foot might as well have been anchored in concrete as sitting on the floor.  Several attempts later it moved, swung forward.  She felt the knee lock, transferred her weight to the prosthesis, lifted her left leg and swung it past the right.  She had taken her first step.  She repeated the process several times.  By the time she got to the end of the bars, she was tired.  Actually, exhausted would have been more accurate.  Obviously learning to use this leg was not going to be easy.