December 12, 2022: Brace Yourself -

Last Monday, I went to the doc because I’d taken a big fall, and got an x-ray of my wrist (sprained), and my foot (a broken bone). The doc gave me a wrist brace, and said the Medical Equipment people would contact me about a walking boot. 

I went home and dug a very large and clunky old walking boot out of the attic, to tide me over until the Medical Equipment people called.

They didn’t.

I really hated that boot. It came up to my knee, weighed a ton, stuck out in all directions, and felt slightly unstable. I was sure that since I’d worn it, walking boots had improved. On Thursday, I called Medical Equipment at 8 am, and they said they had no order for me. At 10 a.m., the doc said that the order had gone through, and the Medical Equipment people were “working on it.”

They weren’t.  

Today I called around again. The Medical Equipment people don’t fill those orders anymore, but outsource them. I called the supplier. He was very distressed, said he couldn’t fill the order, I had to see another doctor, and there were no appointments, and even then it would be days. His distress was both defensive (This wasn’t HIS fault), and sympathetic (“You have a BROKEN BONE! Why didn’t they give you a boot in the ER?”).

From the beginning of this injury-journey, it’s been clear that Our Health Care System Is Overloaded. I decided to take control of my life, as the new choir director says (well, she says “musical life,” and this was “semi-ambulatory life,” but same thing).

I said: Where would you go, if you wanted to buy a walking boot today, retail, off the shelf? He said a place called Brace Yourself, out by 205.

Boy oh boy, does the guy at that store love picking up the phone and saying, “BRACE YOURSELF!”

They had every boot in stock. I said I’d be by in the afternoon.

But first, I was off to see my dancer friend Kim, and tour her new house - or rather, the main floor, because I wasn’t taking any stairs in that knee-high monstrosity. Her pianist mom was there, and everybody was slammed with Christmas performances – Kim with Nutcracker, Susan in the orchestra for a play called “Elf,” me with the Bach Christmas Oratorio.

So we had a good chat about holiday season in the performing arts, and how great it was to be slammed again, after those quiet pandemic years. And then I moaned about wanting a different boot, and Kim said, “Which foot?” and ran upstairs and came back with exactly what I needed. Merry Christmas to me!